


I'll Draw this Line (and hope you take my side.)

by sara_holmes



Series: One More Troubled Soul [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Character in jail, Denial, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flashbacks, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Love, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Nightmares, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Past Brainwashing, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Rogers, Recovered Memories, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier, Supervillain Supermax, Things Get Better, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-06-08 21:00:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6873118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sara_holmes/pseuds/sara_holmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers is the Winter Soldier. He has his missions, he had his orders, he has his place in the world. If people would just stop reminding him about that time he was Captain America, it would be a lot easier to stay in that damn place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The story that I ended up with is very different to the one I originally planned. To begin with, it was very Steve/Tony centric, but I kinda found that Steve had his own story to tell.
> 
> Special thank you to Liz (everyworldneedslove) for being a supporter of this entire series and loving Bucky!Cap even when no-one else did. Thanks to Dwell-the-Brave and Kaylee-Rose21 for being super beta readers and picking up on the ten thousand repetitions. 
> 
> And thank you to everyone who came up with headcanons and ideas for Steve in this verse - you helped me build a fic that I'm actually pretty proud of.

And Steve Rogers wakes with a gasp, a faint curse in Russian bitten off in the back of his throat. He pushes himself upright, servos in his arm whirring, the faint sound of the plates sliding against each other audible even over his thudding pulse. His chest feels tight from forcing his breathing calm, shallowly breathing so he doesn’t wake the sleeping figure in the bed next to him.

"Blyad," he mutters under his breath, feeling angry with himself. It’s been a year since he moved into this place, a whole year since he was pulled out from under the thumb of Hydra and settled somewhere safe. And still, he wakes on a regular basis with nightmares that just won’t quit.

He rubs at his eyes with metal fingers, then pushes them through his hair. Shorter now, not that he really cares about style or what he looks like. Next to him, Tony lets out a sleepy grunt and rolls over, for once not awakened by Steve’s nightmares. In the pale light Steve can see that Tony’s wearing a frown, a small cleft between his eyebrows which Steve wishes he could smooth away.

What he really wants is for Tony to be awake, to tell him that it’s alright, to settle him back down with sleep-rough words and lethargic hands. He won’t wake him though; in the months since he’s been here at Tony’s side, he’s learned that a good night’s rest often eludes Tony as much as it does him. But now, Tony is having a period of actually sleeping well and Steve won’t take that away from him. In fact, if anyone else tries to take that away from Tony, Steve will be dealing with them swiftly and sharply.

Steve climbs out of the bed, bare feet making no sound on the floor. He pads out of the bedroom, silently making his way down to the communal kitchen. It’s empty when he gets there, the lights blinking on soundlessly and bathing the room in soft mellow light. It’s so quiet and still; it feels like the whole world has stopped, everything else but Steve deep in slumber.

Well, nearly everyone else. As Steve gets a glass and fills it up with cold water from the refrigerator, he hears advancing footsteps. Tony, he thinks, and grimaces as a wave of guilt rolls through him. He’s still not used to feeling guilty about anything. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t like it.

“Why the fuck are you awake?”

It’s not Tony but Bucky who calls out to him, slouching in with epic-bed head and a scowl. He’s shirtless and in sweats and makes a beeline for the coffee maker.

Steve’s shoulders relax as he watches Bucky jab irritably at the machine. “I’m a robot, I don’t sleep,” he replies, and Bucky stops and gives him a weary, pained look, the type that says _‘please don’t joke about that, it really isn’t funny.’_

Steve’s gotten pretty good at reading Bucky’s looks. He remembers doing the same in a different time and place. A whole lifetime ago.

“Still not funny,” Bucky mutters, leaning back against the counter and rubbing vigorously at his face with both hands. “I got an alert. Something going on out in Iowa. Something Hydra shaped.”

Steve’s stomach tenses as he sips at his water. It’s ice-cold and cleansing as it goes down, settling the nervous jitters from his nightmare and starting to help him ease back towards equilibrium. Even so, he still feels like he needs to go and shoot something. It’s easy when he goes into mission-mode. No emotions or nightmares there, just an objective and getting shit done.

“So,” Bucky continues when Steve doesn’t say anything, “I need to decide who I’m waking at the ass o'clock of the morning to go and check on what Hydra are doing dicking around in a cornfield in Iowa.”

“Natasha?”

“She’ll either kiss me for giving her bad guys to beat up or eviscerate me for waking her up for nothing,” Bucky says. “I don’t like my odds. And Clint will definitely shoot first, ask questions later; he’s only just got back from Budapest. Maybe Sam, but he’ll just bitch about my flying-”

“I’ll go,” Steve suggests. “I’m awake. And I’m good at beating up Hydra.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “I want to check them out, not render them all limbless.”

Steve pulls a face. These goddamn Avengers are pretty good at appreciating his skills when he’s saving their asses from the latest bad guys, but he uses what they called _unnecessary force_ on one guy that one time and suddenly they’re all conscience. “I can do checking out.”

Bucky seems to think that over. “Alright,” he says. “As long as you do as you’re fuckin’ told. Only remove limbs if I tell you to.”

"Tak tochno," Steve says with a lazy salute, and Bucky scowls.

“I’ll give you fuckin’ affirmative,” he says. “Will Tony not mind you going?”

"Nyet," Steve says. “He’s starting a new project. Something for the medical team. He won’t even notice I’m gone.”

Bucky snorts at that, disbelieving. “Whatever you say, pal. Come on, then. Get some coffee in you and let’s roll.”

 

* * *

 

It’s a milk run. Steve doesn’t remove any limbs from Hydra agents, though he does shoot a couple. Bucky doesn’t bitch though because he shot someone as well, and smashed someone in the face with the shield in what Clint would definitely call ‘a dick move.’ They do manage to get hold of some intel, so Bucky is happy. SHIELD are happy with the intel, though apparently aren’t so happy that Captain America took the Winter Soldier with him on a SHIELD-led mission without a heads-up first. Apparently Steve makes some of the agents nervous.

Steve doesn’t give a damn what SHIELD think. He was there to make sure Bucky was safe and Bucky is happy with him, so that’s all that counts.

With that in mind, he skips the SHIELD debrief and heads straight back to the tower. He bypasses Sam and Nat who are both on the communal floor, and instead finds Tony in the workshop, elbow deep in the guts of something that looks like a full-body scanner. Steve gives the thing a suspicious look as he comes in, skirting around the edge of the room away from it.

“Welcome home, did you have fun, did you dismember anyone, yes this is a scanner and no I’m not going to put you in it,” Tony says by way of greeting. He pulls his hands free and turns towards Steve, leaning back against the machine and crossing his arms across his chest, kicking one ankle over the other.

“Just a milk run. Collecting data,” Steve says and walks over to him. He reaches out and loops his metal fingers around Tony’s wrist, thumb stroking against soft skin.

“Next time, wake me up before you go,” Tony says.

Steve shakes his head. “You needed the rest.”

Tony pulls him in by the front of his tactical jacket and kisses him, eyes searching Steve’s face for something. “You’re tired.”

Steve shakes his head, but then pauses to actually think about it. Maybe he is. He often ignores - or forgets - about his own needs, especially when he’s in mission mode.

Right on cue, his stomach rumbles. Tony leans back, looking exasperated. “Go and get breakfast,” he says. “Jesus, Steve. I’m bad enough at remembering regular meals, don’t rely on me to feed both of us.”

Steve feels his mouth curving, fond and amused. “You’re full of shit. You wouldn’t let me go hungry.”

Tony rolls his eyes and pulls Steve in again. Steve kisses him gently, one hand coming up to carefully cup the back of Tony’s head. Tony regularly assures him that he’s not breakable, but to Steve he very much feels it.

“Breakfast,” Tony murmurs against his mouth. “Breakfast, shower, sleep. In that order, Soldier Boy.”

Steve nods, accepting. Well, mostly. “Sex, breakfast, shower, sleep?” he tries, and Tony grins and leans up to catch his mouth again.

 

* * *

 

Steve checks off sex, shower and breakfast, but hesitates when it comes to sleep. He feels wide awake, and knows his adrenaline is still probably off the charts. Tony utterly ignores his reasoning and pushes him into their bed, like Steve isn’t ten times stronger than he is.

“Sleep,” Tony says, hands on Steve’s shoulders, pushing him back in a way that Steve really doesn’t like. He keeps his hands to himself though, and breathes through the momentary discomfiture, sinking back into the pillows. “Three hours minimum.”

Steve nods jerkily. Tony frowns and takes his hands from Steve’s shoulders, reaching up to brush his fingers across Steve’s forehead.

“Sleep,” he repeats. “I’ll be here.”

Steve exhales slowly, deliberately lets all of his muscles go lax. His brain is harder to shut off; he can feel the vague edge of a memory itching, one that’s not properly placed yet. Maybe it’ll come clearer when he sleeps.

He closes his eyes, feels the brush of Tony’s mouth across his. He listens to Tony breathing, the soft sounds of him working on a tablet screen, the faint patter of spring rain starting up against the windows. Slowly, the adrenaline fades and he’s able to relax, finally and willingly slipping into slumber.

 

* * *

 

He wakes six hours later, memory crystal clear behind his eyelids; fighting at Bucky’s side just like they did on the mission earlier, except _he_ was in the suit with the shield in his hand.

He curses viciously and climbs out of the bed, ignoring Tony’s bewildered protests and stalking away, shoving the memory aside and refusing to think about it any more.  

 

* * *

 

 

“I don’t want to even go on this bullshit mission, never mind dragging one of you with me! It’s going to be a _mess._ ”

“Well SHIELD will be there to support, I guess?”

“Well maybe if SHIELD could fuckin’ do their job properly, we wouldn’t be having this problem!”

“No shop talk over breakfast, boys.”

It’s another day and another argument, and this time it’s Natasha’s calm voice that ends the ranting. She’s not even bothering to look at who she’s talking to, just flicking through a newspaper feed on a tablet, cup of coffee held in hand. Bucky and Clint both turn to look at her; Bucky with a disgruntled frown and Clint with an acquiescing shrug.

Steve watches them unobtrusively from his perch on a stool, sitting on the end of the island counter. It’s a typical breakfast really, other than the fact that Bucky is looking stressed, a deep cleft between his brows marring his expression. He’s been looking more and more like that as the days go by; Steve doesn’t know what he’s dealing with at SHIELD and he doesn’t want to know, not really. But he does want to help Bucky. He’s certain in that, though he’s unsure as to how he can do it. There are probably words somewhere that would help, but he’s not exactly good with them.

He’ll just have to stick close, help him in the ways he knows how.

At Bucky’s side, Clint just yawns widely, blinking slowly and rubbing at his face. It’s okay; Steve now knows that Clint can fight exceptionally well even when he’s looking exhausted. It’s a strange contradiction but one Steve has learned to live with.  

His quiet gaze flicks to Natasha, and as it does she raises her own eyes from the news and looks at him, expression unreadable. Steve just meets her gaze and after several seconds she backs down and looks away.

“Buongiorno, amato,” a familiar voice calls, and Steve turns his body towards it as if on autopilot. Tony walks in, freshly showered and wearing a suit that is more expensive than everything Steve has ever owned. Except his arm, maybe. That’s priceless.

“Good morning to you too, my darling,” Clint replies through another yawn and Tony just rolls his eyes before leaning in to kiss Steve. Steve’s hand finds a home on Tony’s hip, thumb carefully stroking against expensive fabric.  

“Italian is for Steve, not for you,” Tony says. “Cap, you need to find Barton his own friend, then maybe he'll stop bothering me and mine.”

“Would rather fight Thanos single-handedly,” Bucky says, and Clint leans away from him, looking insulted.

“Hey!”

“You’d probably have a higher success rate fighting Thanos single-handedly,” Natasha says and Clint’s expression goes even more wounded.

“I am a delight,” he says. “People should be queueing up to date me.”

Bucky looks around. “Don’t see no queue, pal.”

The corner of Steve’s mouth hitches up. Bucky catches his eye and grins; the frown is momentarily gone.  He smiles back, but looks away before Bucky can say anything that would require an actual verbal response. The bickering continues, and Steve lets it wash over him, focusing instead on Tony’s presence next to him. Even so, he can’t quite shut it out completely; he knows it’s all just fooling around and banter, but there’s a little bit of him that abruptly and unexpectedly doesn’t like the way it’s all directed at Clint. Mostly it’s Natasha’s comments, probably because he knows Bucky well and knows he’d never really upset Clint. Besides, Clint can hold his own.

“So, Capslock, I hear SHIELD are being their usual co-operative and compliant selves?”

He lifts his eyes as his brain registers the change in conversation. Bucky glances at him again and Steve lets his distaste show on his face.

Bucky sighs. “Well, what can I do? They’ve called this mission and we’re just assisting. Their mission, their fuckups. Nevermind if they’re asking me to smooth it all out.”

“Tell them to go fuck themselves?” Clint offers.

“Yeah, Fury just ignores me when I tell him that,” Bucky says glumly. “Maybe I’ve said it too many times.”

“You said it four times in the last meeting,” Natasha says. “It probably is losing its impact a little.”

Bucky pulls a face at her. “Trust you to keep count,” he says, and then braces his hands against the edge of the counter and stands up. “Sunny Delaware, here I come.”

“You need backup?” Steve says.

“You want to go?” Tony asks him, sounding carefully neutral.

Steve shrugs. “I’ll go if Bucky tells me to go.”

Bucky appraises him for a moment. “No,” he says. “You stay here. Natasha, you can be backup this time.”

Steve frowns slightly. He’s not sure why that doesn’t sit right; he’s taken his orders from Bucky and usually that’s that. It’s the same sort of feeling he has when the others were picking on Clint - a sense that maybe he should _do something._

He doesn’t say anything, just watches as Bucky, Clint and Natasha clean up and leave the room. Tony stays with him, sitting in Bucky’s empty chair and picking up the tablet Natasha had been reading on, fingers deftly flicking through screens and menus.

“You eaten yet?” he asks Steve. Steve shakes his head and without looking up, Tony points towards the refrigerator. Steve gets up and goes to find himself some breakfast, eyes flicking to the clock and already unconsciously counting the minutes since Bucky left for the mission without him.

 

* * *

 

Steve watches Tony sleeping carefully, perched on the edge of the bed and letting his eyes track the rise and fall of Tony’s chest beneath his palm. The bedroom is quiet and still, blanketed in pale grey light from the open shades. The city outside is restless, and Steve aches to be away from the city, somewhere truly silent and still. He thinks of fractured memories of Russia; walking through snow-smothered forests in the biting cold, everything so still it was as if it were in suspended animation. No people, no complications, nothing but the cleansing chill of the frozen world around him.

He turns his face to look out of the window. He’s feeling as agitated as the world just outside the windows. The same sensation that he should be doing something to help Bucky. Which is stupid, because Bucky has ordered him to stay put.

He turns back to look at Tony. He doesn’t want to leave his side - he never wants to leave Tony’s side - but the feeling under his sternum just won’t settle.

Well, Steve thinks slowly, getting to his feet and leaning over to pick up his domino mask from the bedside table. Bucky didn’t exactly _order_ him to stay put, now did he?

 

* * *

 

 

It’s easy enough to borrow a jet. Even easier to find out exactly where Bucky and Natasha are. Steve lands and steals into the complex with the single and simple aim of finding Bucky.  The fact that he shoots twelve Hydra agents while finding Bucky is just a side-note, really. He eventually finds him arguing with Nick Fury of all people,  standing next to a gaggle of bound and gagged Hydra minions that evidently weren't quick enough to evade capture.

He steps into the room, and every SHIELD agent swings around and trains their guns on him, including Fury.

“What the shit, Steve?”

Bucky lowers his shield in disbelief. The rest of the SHIELD agents aren’t so trusting and keep their weapons up. A couple of them are shifting on their feet, clearly nervous. Steve is almost tempted to draw a weapon to really scare them. So much for SHIELD agents being the best the country has to offer.

“Care to explain, Cap?” Fury asks, and Bucky twitches irritably. He looks around the rest of the room and reaches out to knock away the gun of the agent closest to him.

“Quit it, lower weapons,” he says to the room, and then walks towards Steve. “I told you I didn’t need you here,” he says in an undertone when he’s at his side, and then raises his voice again to yell at the SHIELD agents. “I said lower weapons! Seriously, you fellas are making me twitchy.”

As Bucky turns back to him, Steve shrugs. “Ya khotel pomoch.”

Bucky scowls. “You wanted to help? You could have helped by staying put.”

“Eto byl ne prikaz,” Steve says. Bucky’s Russian is getting better and better every day - thanks to Natasha - and Steve often slips back into Russian when he doesn't want other people knowing what he’s talking about. That, or he wants to make it more difficult for someone to follow. Or maybe even when he’s just feeling belligerent towards figures of authority.

“You’re kidding right?” Bucky asks. “So what if it wasn’t an order - do I really need to make things orders for you to listen? I’m your fucking _friend_ , Steve. Not just your Captain.”

Steve shrugs again and looks away. He can’t look directly at Bucky when Bucky’s angry at him like this. It reminds him of something he doesn’t want to know. “Moy luchshiy drug.”

At least Bucky laughs at that, but it’s short. “Yeah, your best friend. Gottit. Though maybe I wish my best friend fuckin’ listened to me once in a while.”

“Captain,” Fury says smoothly from behind them, walking up and very obviously tucking his gun away. “Is this the cavalry arriving?”

Steve doesn’t think he reacts, but Bucky lays a warning hand on his arm anyway. “You could say that,” Bucky says vaguely, and his voice goes back into Captain-Mode, brisk and efficient. “Alright, let’s get moving. Finish this job up.”

“Just the East Wing to clear,” Fury says. “Intelligence says there’s a last stand of pretty nasty fighters behind that door-”

“Nyet,” Steve says with another easy shrug. “Ya prishel cherez vostochnoye krylo.”

Bucky rubs at his forehead, looking pained. “Of course you came in through the East Wing,” he mutters, and then looks up at Fury. “Winter Soldier came in through the East Wing, so I can safely assume the East Wing is now clear. Let’s go. Try not to slip in the blood.”

Fury looks at Steve and then slowly nods. “Whatever you say, Cap.”

 

* * *

 

 

Steve isn’t quite surprised when Bucky climbs aboard the jet with him for the journey home, pulling his helmet off and tossing it into a spare seat, before slumping down into the co-pilot’s chair.  He rubs at his forehead, clearly worn out. It makes Steve unhappy, seeing Bucky like this, but he doesn’t say anything. Bucky likes having Steve around, he knows this because he’s told him before, and Steve is happy to be close to Bucky too.

Bucky doesn’t say a word even as Steve fires up the jet and lifts off, not waiting for a go ahead from Fury or the SHIELD team. Steve keeps glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, but Bucky just sits there, a quiet and pensive figure. Steve lets him have the silence; he’s not really one for comforting small talk anyway, and he’s not going to waste energy trying to work out what’s got Bucky in a snit, not when previous observations and trends have shown him that Bucky is probably going to spill anyway.

Sure enough, thirty minutes in and:

“Why did you come today?”

Steve shrugs.

“No dice. You had a reason. Tell me.”

“I was bored,” Steve says. “Tony was annoying me.”

Bucky looks at him sharply. “What? Why? If he’s trying to get you to test-run that scanner of his I’m going to kill him, I told him no-”

Steve feels a sudden smack of guilt at selling Tony out to avoid conversation, and then immediate rolling irritation at the sensation that coalesces into anger at himself. Feeling guilty - and a whole host of other emotions he’d rather ignore - is something he’s got to get used to if he’s going to stay with Tony and Bucky; he can’t interact with them like he used to interact with people. It’s not the same anymore.

He doesn’t regret how things have turned out, but it’s hard.

“I’m lying,” he says abruptly, and Bucky stops threatening bodily harm to Tony, going still and silent. Waiting for Steve to explain. “It’s not Tony. I just - I had to do something. I couldn’t sit still. I got restless.”

Bucky breathes out slowly. “That’s your latent Captain America kicking in.”

The words are like a kick to the stomach. The dream of the battle with him in the suit flashes back and Steve feels his whole body go tense.

“Don’t,” he says, voice pitched at a warning.

“What? Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Bucky says, annoyed. “I didn’t say you were, alright? I just mean - you never could just sit there and let a fight pass you by. Not when you knew the right thing to do.”

“It wasn’t about being right,” Steve says. “It was about being restless.”

Even as he says it, he thinks of the unnerving sensation he’d got when the others had been teasing Clint. The insane urge to stand up for him, to protect him.

“I’m sure,” Bucky says, looking back out the front window. “Stop pretending you’re not a good man under that scowl. It’s getting boring.”

The words _a good man_ echo in Steve’s mind, and another sluggish memory threatens. He shakes his head like he’s jerking away from flies, pushing the sensation ruthlessly away. “Otvyazhis,” he snaps.

“You fuck off,” Bucky replies listlessly, not remotely cowed by Steve’s tone.

There’s a long, tense silence and then Bucky speaks again. “Okay. Thanks for coming to help. But seriously, next time I tell you to stay put, please stay put. Or at least give me a heads up. SHIELD will get twitchy if they think you’re not following orders properly.”

Steve nods. That seems logical. “Okay,” he says to Bucky, and pauses, wondering if Bucky will welcome a joke or if he’s still angry. He doesn’t sound angry, but Steve knows it’s not always that easy. “So, I just have to tell you when I’m not going to listen to you?”

Thankfully, Bucky barks out a laugh. He rolls his head sideways, eyes tired but amused. “Yeah, that’d be swell,” he says, and Steve smiles back.

 

* * *

 

“What the fuck, Steve?”

Tony is less than amused by the time Steve gets back. He’s waiting for him on the landing pad of the tower, arms folded across his chest and jaw tight. Steve winces as he spots him, feeling his shoulders go tense as he edges towards fight or flight mode for a second before he recalls _Tony_ and _safe_.

“You’re in trouble,” Bucky mutters under his breath as he pushes past Steve and walks past Tony, and Steve can’t really argue with that. He slows down, coming to a halt in front of Tony, who is still just standing there.

“So,” Tony says easily as the door closes behind Bucky. “Nick Fury decided to call me and tell me you’d shown up without clearance. Asking me why you’d turned up with no clearance on a SHIELD led operation.”

“Eto ne yego delo,” Steve says, and to his shock Tony reaches out and shoves at him, an angry hand right in his shoulder.

“English. Don’t you fucking dare try and outmanoeuvre me by talking Russian, you _dick._ ”

Steve steps back, feeling guilty again. “I went to help Bucky.”

“Without telling anyone!” Tony shouts. “I had to cover for you and bullshitting to Fury is not something I like doing! Having Fury on my back about you is not something I like doing! Wondering where the fuck you’ve gone is not something I like doing!”

Steve finds he doesn’t have an answer. The memory of the restless feeling he had stirs, the unwelcome feelings from the dream he had itching at the back of his brain. He opens his mouth, closes it again, tight. Turns his face away, looking down at the ground.

A gentle hand moves into his peripheral vision, held palm up. A question. He breathes out heavily, nostrils flaring and then reaches out to take the hand, folding it up in his fingers. With the permission the second hand reaches up to tilt his chin up, making him meet a sad and serious gaze before the fingers gently peel away the domino mask.

“What’s going on in there, Soldier Boy?”

He wants to say nothing. He wants to walk away and be left alone, not made to feel vulnerable and confused. But it’s _Tony_ looking at him and asking, so he can’t.

“I don’t know,” he says, and he feels close to humiliated, furious at himself for the way it comes out, quiet and lost. He’s not used to this, the whole range of confusing emotions, the way he’s now linked to others, his own feelings threaded through theirs and requiring him to tiptoe through like he’s on a minefield.

_Minefield. Walking steadily. One red boot in front of the other._

He jerks back, his hand pulled out of Tony’s. Breathing heavily, he steps back and shakes his head, trying to make it stop, trying to go back to the place where it’s quiet and still and simple, where there are no questions, just orders-

A warm hand takes hold of his again. He allows himself to be pulled forwards. He steps without looking, without thinking. They have him. He will trust that touch. Another body joins on his other side, and he lets the figures steer him inside. Eyes still lidded, he half expects the bite of cryo, the cold on his skin as he sinks under. But no, the warm hands lead him to a warm room, his uniform is stripped from him and he’s pushed back into a bed that is soft and welcoming. It smells familiar, and it makes his chest ache in a way he’s never going to get used to.

“Tony,” he mutters.

“Here,” a voice replies instantly. “I’m here. You want me and Bucky to stay?”

“Da,” Steve says, because he knows Bucky and Tony won’t expect anything from him but for him to be there. They won’t make him make decisions right now, won’t make him remember. “Stay.”

“You got it, pal,” Bucky’s voice says, and that’s all he remembers before the world around him goes black.

 

* * *

 

 

He wakes up alone.

The room is quiet, windows dimmed so that only the faintest light bleed through, washing the room cold and grey. A light is on in the bathroom, and he can hear water running.

He slowly sits up, rubbing at his neck and shoulder where his arm joins, flexing metal fingers and listening to the servos whir, sound barely discernible. He still feels unsettled. He wants to get up and check on Tony, wants to slip through the tower and check off every member of the team when he knows they’re safe. He doesn’t. It’s not his job to do so, so he’ll stay put.

“Morning,” a sleep rough voice says, and he looks up as Tony pads out of the bathroom, coming to sit on the edge of the bed next to him, towel slung low on his hips. “You okay?”

Steve nods. Tony doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t say anything. Steve reaches out with his metal hand and Tony takes it in his own, pulling it up and pressing his mouth to Steve’s knuckles.

“You scared me yesterday,” he says against Steve’s fingers, and then lifts worried eyes to Steve’s. “What happened?”

Steve shrugs. “Malfunction.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Yeah, no dice. You’re like, twelve percent robot at most. And that doesn’t explain the sudden vanishing act or the meltdown you had when you got back.”

“I didn’t have a meltdown,” Steve says. “You were asking me questions and I didn’t have the answers.”

“You have any answers this morning?”

“Drop it,” Steve says, but he takes the bite out of his words by reaching for Tony, pulling at him until Tony is lying on his back at his side. Steve pulls the blankets free and tosses them over both of them, running a hand down Tony’s collarbone until his hand covers the arc-reactor.

Tony’s mouth hitches in a smile. “Don’t,” he says. “I like the light on your face.”

Steve spreads his fingers apart and Tony’s smile grows stronger. “Beautiful,” he says, and Steve rolls his eyes but doesn’t close his fingers.

“Too beautiful to resist, I hope,” he says, leaning over Tony and gently pressing his mouth to Tony’s collarbones.

Tony laughs. “Always,” he says, and his hands run up Steve’s sides, fingers massaging at his ribs. “Ti amo,” he murmurs.

Steve lets the words wash over him, warm and welcome. "Ti amo anch'io," he whispers back, and even with feeling as uncertain as he does right now, he knows that at the very least he can trust in that to stay true.

 

* * *

 

After the mission with Bucky – and the aftermath – Steve makes a conscious effort to return to normal. Well, what tentatively qualifies for his standard of normal, anyway. He doesn’t leave the tower without both Bucky and Tony knowing, and certainly doesn’t turn up on anymore SHIELD led missions. He does his usual tech testing for Tony, in which he is given prototypes and told to try and a) break them or b) weaponise them. He trains with Clint and Bucky, and watches Natasha and Sam’s training even though he knows full well that Natasha never lets him see her full skillset.

He stays where he’s told, follows his orders to the letter. Except the dumb ones Tony makes about things like wearing a sweater, and sleeping for so many hours a night and such, because they’re dumb and Tony instating such rules is ridiculously hypocritical.

Working out and drawing also provide easy distractions, so he doesn’t have to think about any of the memories that are skulking on the periphery of his memory. Certainly doesn’t tell Tony or Bucky that he’s still not feeling right, that it’s taking all of his damn energy to keep himself level. It isn’t their burden to bear, and he definitely doesn’t want them worrying. It was bad enough when it was his arm giving him trouble, so he’s not about to tell them it’s his mind that’s malfunctioning this time.      

He manages to keep the act up with an impressive level of success.

That is, until he abruptly doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

 

Hawkeye is possibly seconds from death when the Winter Soldier appears from the shadows of the underground vault and shoots his captors dead. The man who had been standing behind Clint with a knife held to his throat falls back in an ungraceful arc, the knife falling from a limp hand and clattering on the concrete floor. The second man crumples soundlessly and lies there, unseeing eyes staring at nothingness, a look of mild surprise on his face.

From his position on his knees, Clint’s head snaps up and it’s relief that fills his eyes when he spots Steve, but that’s quickly replaced by something altogether less glad.

“You’re not supposed to be here!”

“Thank me later,” Steve snaps, striding over and walking behind Clint to tug at the cuffs that are holding his wrists against his spine, the angle awkward and clearly uncomfortable.

“I’ll thank you now,” Clint says fervently. “But Bucky and Tony both think you’re at home.”

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” Steve says. “Hold still.”

Clint does as bid and Steve wrenches the cuffs apart, freeing his hands. Clint groans in relief and rubs at his wrists; one is bleeding and the sight of it makes Steve feel furious.

“How did you find me?” Clint asks distractedly as he clambers unsteadily to his feet, shaking his head at Steve’s outstretched hand, an offer of help. He’s already looking around the room, eyes alert.

“Was listening on comms,” Steve says, taking a step towards the door. Clint moves to the other side of the room, collecting up his gear with a noise of triumph that Steve doesn’t think really shows the proper appreciation for the seriousness of the situation. “Flew in when Bucky said that HYDRA were focussing on you.”

Clint gives him a funny look at that, strapping his quiver to his back. “You know I had this, right?”

Steve snorts derisively. “Sure looked like it.”

“I’ve been in worse jams before,” Clint says easily, shrugging like he wasn’t even worried about having a knife to his throat. “And these assholes usually pick on me when they get desperate. Reckon I’m easy to take out-”

“You are,” Steve snaps.

Clint rears back, his temper rising sudden and swift. “Has Bucky told you to keep an eye on me?” he accuses. “Fuck, I know why you do it with Tony, but come on! I’m not a weak link here, and if Bucky thinks I am I’m going to remind him about Budapest. Hell, I’ll remind him about New York if I have to-”

“No,” Steve begins, and abruptly shuts his mouth because he suspects he’s going to have to explain his actions and he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t think he can.

“Tell me he didn’t,” Clint demands, striding up to Steve and jabbing him in the chest with a finger. “Right now.”

“What the _fuck_ , Steve?!”

Clint’s angry yelling is cut short by none other than Bucky, who storms into the room looking furious. He looks at the dead men on the floor and then rounds on Steve.

“You are not supposed to be here!”

“Bullshit!” Clint yells, and Bucky spins round on a heel, momentarily sidetracked by the interjection. “You told him to be here to look after me!”

Bucky’s jaw drops. “Like hell I did! Why the fuck would I do that?”

“Explain why else he’s here,” Clint demands. “I can look after myself!”

“I know you can, asshole!” Bucky says in disbelief. “Is this the face of a man who expects Steve to be here? You think - hell, you know how he works. If I’d told him to look out for you, you reckon any Hydra agents would have even got close to you?!”

“Then why is he here?!” Clint yells.

“I don’t know,” Bucky shouts back, and some of the fight goes out of him. “I don’t know,” he repeats, perplexed. “Steve, we told you to stay put.”

Steve feels his own temper flare. “He is vulnerable,” he says shortly to Bucky. “You want a teammate to die on a mission at your side again?”

Bucky’s face goes white, and he steps back like Steve has made a move to physically hit him. Steve feels his own stomach drop; he’s not let his anger get the better of him in months and he’s dimly aware of how cruel that sentence is coming out of his mouth.

“Bucky-”

“Fuck you, Steve,” Bucky says bitterly. “Just, fuck you.”

“Alright boys, that’s enough,” a modulated voice says, and Steve turns to see Iron Man walk into the room, armour bright even in the dull light. “Steve, go home.”

Steve doesn’t know what Tony heard. He doesn’t know what Tony is thinking. But right now, he’s being given an order and he’s going to follow it. He nods, and he goes without another word.

 

* * *

 

 

Steve sits alone in Tony’s workshop, listening to the dull humming of the scanner in the corner and the chirps of Dum-E as he attempts to clean something in the far corner of the room. This place is oddly quiet without Tony’s presence filling it up, but it’s cold and still and Steve can appreciate that right now. He turns tired eyes to the holoscreen that’s open next to him. It’s a video feed of Clint on the range, repeatedly shooting moving targets with his usual degree of accuracy. Steve thinks that maybe Clint would be shooting at targets shaped like him, if they had any.

“Jarvis. Turn the temperature down,” he says quietly. “Three more degrees.”

Leaning back in Tony’s chair, he reaches out and picks up a screwdriver from the bench, turning it over and over in his hands, the metal clicking against his fingers. He closes his eyes and breathes out through his nose, aching for things to be simple and easy again, for all the rough parts and sharp edges _to go away-_

The door hisses open and he slowly opens his eyes.

“Jeez, it’s fuckin’ freezing in here,” Bucky curses, his breath misting in the air in front of him. “Jarvis, sort it out.”

The room grows warmer again. Steve doesn’t object, though he very much wants to. He’s never going to say it out loud but he’s a little afraid of what might happen if he starts trying to speak up and argue against Bucky right now. He’s just going to do what he’s told, to follow orders like he’s meant to.

“You alright?” Bucky asks, walking over and leaning back on the bench, crossing his arms over his chest. “What’re you hiding down here for?”

“It’s quiet,” Steve says. “I need quiet.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything, just chews at the inside of his lip, thinking. “What happened today?” He finally asks. Steve just shrugs, turns his face away.

Bucky is persistent. “Why did you come out? And why did you go to Clint? Where’s that come from?”

“He was hurt,” Steve says, turning the screwdriver over and over, clicking against his fingers. “He was in danger.”

“We’re all in danger a lot of the time,” Bucky points out. “And Clint isn’t an idiot.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Steve says.

Bucky makes a frustrated noise. “If there’s things going on with my team, I need to know.” Steve still doesn’t respond, so he pushes away from the desk. “Fine. Whatever, I don’t have time to try and get you talking, I’ve got to go and brief Clint before I send him back out to track down the rest of the Hydra cell-”

" _Nyet._ ”

Steve is on his feet before he can think, fists clenched and another snarl on his mouth, ready. It’s only when Bucky raises a pointed eyebrow that he realises what he’s done. He stands down, letting his hands drop to his side.

“Aaaaand Captain America gets the point,” Bucky says. “Calm down, I’m not sending Clint anywhere.”

He steps past Steve and sinks down into the chair, leaning back and looking up at Steve. “But you are going to tell me why you’re suddenly mother-henning him.”

Steve feels - he doesn’t even know. It’s all wrong and he’s confused and outmanoeuvred and he hates it. He wordlessly sinks down to sit on the floor beside Bucky, leaning back against the sturdy strength of Bucky’s leg, head tipped back against his thigh.

“I’m-” he starts, swallows hard. “I don’t know. Since I got here, everything has been changing. I’ve been changing.”

“Not a bad thing,” Bucky says gently. He reaches down, brushes his fingers over Steve’s brow, like he used to do when they were kids and he was pushing Steve’s hair out of his face. Steve half-shrugs at that, an aborted jerky gesture that Bucky seems to understand.  

They sit in silence for a while longer, until Bucky speaks again, contemplative.

“I think I know why you were there.”

“Do tell,” Steve says tiredly. Bucky’s going to force this conversation one way or another, and if he’s willing to do the talking then Steve will take it as the lesser evil.

“Barton’s one of the little guys right? Next to the rest of us, you see him as the little guy. And you’re protecting him, because you’re Captain America.”

“I am _not._ ”

“Well then if you’re not, stop acting like it,” Bucky says. “You either need to accept your inner Cap and be that guy, or you need to just stop with this – this randomly stepping in and being the hero stuff. You know which one I want, but I’ve never been able to get you to do a damn thing you don’t want to do.”

“Why can’t I step in?” Steve asks suddenly, not even dignifying the hero comment with an acknowledgement. He twists around to look up at Bucky, wanting to see his response. “If I step in and help every now and again, things get done.”

Bucky runs a hand through his hair, troubled. “Because you are not just a guy who wants to help. You are - you’re the Winter Soldier, Steve,” he says, looking pained. “SHIELD will get mighty twitchy if they find out you keep acting without orders or clearance.”

“You do it,” Steve says, and Bucky laughs shortly.

“Yeah, well I’m wearing a star-spangled banner, gives me a little leeway,” he says, and then the smile fades. “And when you step in, you go in with no quarter. I mean, someone at SHIELD made a crack about you being the Avengers' attack-dog the other day.”

Steve snorts humorlessly. “Tell them my bark is worse than my bite.”

“You are all bite these days,” Bucky says gently, his smile sad. He ruefully shakes his head. “If only people knew your real history. The whole picture. They’d get off your back, then.”

“Ancient history,” Steve says. “I wish you’d forget it.”

Bucky reaches out and takes hold of Steve’s shoulder, squeezing. “Wouldn’t want to even if I could. Remembering you as Cap was the only thing that got me able to stand up on my own two feet in this damn century.”

And to his utter shock, Steve feels tears pricking at the corner of his eyes. He manages to stop himself standing up and walking away, trying to will away the confusing mix of emotions that Bucky’s words evoke.

“Go and find Tony,” Bucky says, and Steve knows him well enough to appreciate that Bucky is intentionally giving him an out. “He’s going to come and force-feed you dinner if you miss another meal.”

Steve holds a hand up to show he’s heard, and leaves without looking back.

 

* * *

 

 

And behind the fence, faces like skulls, empty eyes looking pleadingly at him for help. Skeletal fingers wrapped around barbed wire. Walking forwards over parched earth, men behind him, waiting for orders. Not a sound. The sun beats down, unforgiving.

He steps forwards. Boots crunch on dry bracken. Bucky crowds close, uncertain and unsure at his elbow.

_Help._

It whispers on the night, carries like a breeze. Steve steps forwards, and the faces step back, cowering. He reaches up with red gloves, snaps at the chain on the fence. There’s another behind it. Sweat trickles down his face as he pulls at the second. A third twists around the wood, heavier than the others, and he shouts orders for the men to help, all of them heaving at the chain.

It won’t break. He needs to break it, he’s Captain America, his job is to save these people and if he can’t then he doesn’t deserve to be. He shouts in frustration, unleashing his full strength on the fence and the chains that are growing ever heavier.

It doesn’t break and behind the fence, Hawkeye tightens his fingers around the wire, and he’s bleeding, red rivers down his forearms-

He wakes with a strangled scream, drenched in sweat, chest heaving. It’s warm, too warm and he can barely breathe, and the bedding is tangled around his waist and it’s too much, too claustrophobic. He staggers to his feet, clutching his left wrist in his right. Gets out of the bed and backs into the corner of the room, eyes looking around wildly for threats and danger, brain trying to register familiarity.

Tony.

Tony is sitting up in the bed, his body turned awkwardly away. His arm is raised, face hidden in the crook of his elbow and he’s breathing harshly. The fingers of his other hand are twisted in the blankets and he’s trembling.

“Tony?” Steve says, voice low. It looks like Tony has had a nightmare of his own, but he doesn’t move as Steve repeats his name and it’s then when something like fear starts to make itself known.

“Tony,” Steve repeats, and he slowly edges forwards, his own panic forgotten as he clambers back onto the bed. “ _Tony._ V chem delo? What’s wrong?”

Finally, Tony speaks. “Are you alright?”

Confused, Steve kneels next to him, sinking back with his hands held uselessly in his lap. “Me?”

“Are you okay?” Tony repeats, adamant.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Steve says. “Tony. You’re – you’re. What’s wrong?”

Tony shakes his head behind his arm, lets out a short laugh. “I tried to wake you up,” he says, resigned and explanatory. Steve goes tense as understanding settles, then reaches for Tony’s arm, metal fingers around his wrist. Tony doesn’t resist and Steve’s stomach drops in horror as he pulls his arm away and sees Tony’s face.

"Derr`mo. _Shit_."

“Not your fault,” Tony says, looking down at his knees.

Steve lets go of Tony’s arm. “Ya tebya obidel,” he says, and his voice is shaking. “ _I hurt you._ Tony, I could have broken-”

“Nothing is broken,” Tony says, and he lifts his chin to look Steve in the eye, looking at him through his good eye and the ones that’s starting to swell shut. “I’ll have a black eye for a few days, big deal.”

“It is a fucking big deal!”

Steve is on his feet again without knowing it. His heart is hammering like a piston, and he feels twisted up and turned inside out. “I could have broken your fucking neck-”

“Will you stop?” Tony suddenly snaps back. “You didn’t. You clipped me because you were having a nightmare, now calm down. If I’m not freaking out then you’re not freaking out either.”

“Bucky is going to string me up,” Steve says without thinking.

Tony does laugh at that, though it’s rough around the edges. “Bucky would not string you up even if you’d throttled me,” he says, which is not funny. Tony’s mouth hitches. “You might want to look out for Natasha though.”

That’s not funny either, and Steve tells Tony that. Tony just sighs and holds out his hands for Steve to take. After a moment, Steve does, and allows Tony to pull him back onto the bed. He sits cross legged and pulls Tony up into his lap so his legs are either side of Steve’s hips.

“Izvini, ya ne khotel tebya obidet',” Steve mutters. Shame is starting to curl in his gut, along with the type of fear that has started appearing more and more often, the type that cannot bear the people around him getting hurt.

“It’s okay, I know you didn’t mean to hurt me,” Tony says quietly, pressing close. His hands are warm on Steve’s shoulders, sliding around to his back. “And I know you’re sorry. We’re okay.”

Steve doesn’t feel remotely okay. He’s too warm but he doesn’t want to let Tony go. The guilt at hurting Tony is making him feel sick, the panic that he could have seriously hurt him making him want to run a mile.

But he won’t. If Tony says that it’s okay, then it’s okay. He’s hurt handlers before, usually when he’s disorientated coming out of cryo, and that was always okay afterwards too.

“You’re shaking,” Tony murmurs, pushing Steve’s face up. “Talk to me.”

Steve shakes his head: no. Tony’s fingers still on his jaw and then he’s letting go of Steve, leaning back and turning his face away. His eye is already purpling and dark, and Steve doesn’t want to look at it.

“You know,” Tony says, and his voice is flat. “After that debacle with your arm, you promised you’d let me know if you were hurting again.”

“I’m okay,” Steve tries to say, but Tony sees right through him.

“I’m not willing to stand by and watch you try and shoulder this all yourself, I’m _not._ ”

Steve reaches out on instinct. Tony takes his hand and lets himself be pulled back close, his arms wrapping around Steve’s shoulders, his chin atop Steve’s head. He’s disappointed, Steve realises. Disappointed that Steve hasn’t come to him while he’s hurting.

“I’m not weak,” Steve says suddenly. “No matter what Hydra did to me. I'm not.”

Tony strokes his hand over Steve’s head. “Of all the varied adjectives I could use to describe you, weak was never even on the shortlist.”

Steve laughs shortly, rests his head on Tony’s chest, forehead on the arc-reactor.

“I was dreaming,” he finally says. “I was the Captain. I couldn’t save everyone.” He swallows hard. “I don’t like Bucky talking about when I was.”

“Well,” Tony says, sounding like he’s trying to work out what to say. “You were. You’re not now, but you can’t just ignore the fact you were.”

“I can,” Steve says suddenly. “I have to.”

“You don’t have to-”

“I _do_ ,” Steve says, and leans back so he can look at Tony’s face. “Everything they made me, everything I did. I can live with it – I can start to put it right, but I can’t pretend to be that person anymore. I can never be that person again. I can be – a better version of what I’ve become now, but being Captain America - It’s over. Can you imagine what the world would say if they found out it was _Captain America_ who was turned into Hydra’s top assassin?”

“Steve,” Tony says helplessly. “You’re better than you give yourself credit for.”

Steve sighs. “Then why am I always in some form of trouble with someone, somewhere?”

“It’s...complicated. You’re complicated,” Tony says.

“Says you,” Steve mutters, and lets Tony pull him back in, enveloping him in strong arms.

 

* * *

 

 

Tony was right; it’s Natasha who is least happy about what happened to him during Steve’s nightmare, though Sam is a close second. She doesn’t say anything to Steve, but he overhears her snapping at Tony, the tail end of a comment about not sleeping with Steve if Steve isn’t in control. It’s only Clint‘s timely presence which stops Steve going in with hackles raised.

That, and the fact that despite the incident and the risk, he knows Tony has no intention of removing Steve from his life or his bed.

 

* * *

 

 

Steve doesn’t have time to dwell on his nightmare, or the not-so-hidden meaning of it. It’s barely two days later and the Avengers are thrown into chaos by a level one alert. The kind of alert that has Bucky cursing and simply shouting, “everyone get on the fucking jet and bring all the fucking weapons you can!”

It’s only when the jet is aloft and on route to Europe that Natasha looks at Steve and says, “I don’t think he actually meant everyone.”

Steve feels the words slice at him just like she intended. She’s never been so openly harsh toward him, though Tony is still sporting the black eye he’d received at Steve’s hand, and he’s willing to bet that the incident has neither been forgotten nor forgiven. He slowly turns around to face her, meeting her eyes and not looking away as he slips his tactical vest on, pulling it into place around his left shoulder and then folding it closed over his chest, deftly doing up the buckles. She breaks eye contact and looks away, shaking her head minutely.

“I did mean everyone, everyone includes Steve,” Bucky says, eyes glued to a tablet and either oblivious to or ignoring the stand-off between Steve and Natasha. “We’re going to need him.”

“Whoa, if you’re saying we need him, I’m really not looking forwards to getting off this jet,” Sam says.

“It’s a level one, we need all the backup we can get,” Tony says, stepping up to the center console. He’s already suited up, fully armoured but sans helmet.

“I leave him here and he’s going to show up anyway,” Bucky says to Nat, obviously sensing that she’s still not happy with the decision to bring Steve. “You’ve seen how he’s been with Clint and Tony. I’d rather have him there under orders and doing something to help, rather than turning up and doing what he fucking feels like.”

“You’re bringing him _because_ he won’t follow orders?” Natasha asks incredulously.

“Would you stay put if i was going somewhere this dangerous?” Bucky snaps, and Natasha’s face must show something because Bucky follows up with a pointed, “Exactly.”

“Okay, well he’s here, and there’s no sense in leaving him on the jet,” Bruce says calmly. “What’s the plan? I assume we have one?”

Bucky steps towards the holoscreen and with several deft swipes of his fingers he throws up a set of schematics; a ghostly castle etched in blue light. Across the light, Sam and Natasha exchange a significant look, and Steve has to bite down on a comment, or some choice Russian insults.

“This is Castle Von Strucker,” Bucky says. “Who we now have reason to believe is not just an eccentric Baron with philanthropic tastes, but the second Head of Hydra.”

Steve goes very still. He feels armored fingers on the back of his arm, both reassurance and a reminder to keep his head. It’s difficult; every time he hears about Hydra he fights with an urge to rip someone limb from limb. And to know they’re going in to face one of the leaders of the organisation that’s responsible for both his life and Bucky’s almost-death makes him feel very twitchy indeed. 

“Word on the street is that he has a shit ton of weaponry, some human and some extra-terrestrial,”  Bucky says, and then his eyes go to Clint, who is still in the pilot’s seat. “Clint.”

“What?”

“We might be dealing with Loki’s magic staff, here.”

There’s a pause, and then Clint says, “Don’t touch the pointy end, and don’t feed it after midnight.”

Bucky grins and Natasha rolls her eyes. Sam bites back a laugh and Bruce just shakes his head. Joke over and assured that Clint is okay, Bucky goes back into business mode, lifts a hand and starts checking things off on gloved fingers. “We have to go in, retrieve the staff, retrieve any other weapons and retrieve intel from any servers they have up and running.”

“And?” Natasha says.

Sighing, Bucky gives up on counting and rubs at his chin. “And we’ve been told by our helpful fucking asshole over at SHIELD that we have to take Strucker and as many of his minions alive as possible.”

All heads turn to Steve. He doesn’t bother to feel offended; he knows that his track record speaks for itself, and he’s not going to apologise for it.  So he just sighs and folds his arms across his chest. “Are we going to pretend I’m the only one that has ever used lethal force?”

“That is not an argument we are going to have right now,” Tony interjects smoothly. “Steve, no killing anyone today.”

Steve salutes him lazily. “Tak tochno.”

“Sure, you listen to him,” Bucky snorts, but doesn’t seem overly bothered. “Alright. So. This is what we do.”

Bucky goes straight into the how’s and when’s of the mission plan; Steve listens to as much as he has to, also carefully watching Tony and making mental notes about where both he and Hawkeye are going to be during this mission. All he has to do is make sure no-one gets hurt, and everything will be fine.

 

* * *

 

Of course, everything goes to hell the moment they step off the jet. SHIELD’s assessment that Von Strucker had a shit-ton of weapons has turned out to be very true, but somehow they had managed to not include ‘two enhanced beings that are capable of kicking our asses’ on their inventory. There’s one who can move at an inhuman pace, and he seems to be having a wonderful time appearing out of nowhere and tagging Hawkeye with ever-increasing force, and there’s a woman with red eyes who is making things move without touching them, sending Bucky and Natasha around in circles as they try to locate her.  

“Permission to use lethal force?” Steve grits out as he stands back to back with Hawkeye, listening to the sound of laughter carrying distantly on the air.

“Request seconded,” Clint says, sounding furious. “These guys are fucking with us.”

“Negative,” Bucky’s voice says, strained. “We’ve got eyes on the girl - they’re kids. Repeat, the enhanced in the field are kids, we go for capture or evade.”

“Kids? What are Hydra doing with kids?” Tony’s voice yells. “Shields on the west tower are down, going in to find the scepter.”

“Blyat,” Steve snarls. “Can I at least knock him out?”

“If you can knock him out without killing him,” Bucky says. “We need to - _Nat!_ ”

The panic in Bucky’s voice, audible even over the comms, sends Steve’s stomach twisting up in fear. There’s the sound of a dull roar over the comms and Bucky’s voice vanishes, the line resting silent and dead.

“Bucky?” Steve says, overlapping with Clint’s urgent “Cap?” He swears again. “Bucky? Can you hear me? Tony? _Blyad_ , can anyone hear me?”

“Go,” Clint says, pushing at Steve’s shoulder. “Fuck holding the line, Hulk can cover us, go!”

They both take off at a sprint, running towards the crumbling towers that are perched precariously on top of the hill. They get as far as the bridge when an increasingly familiar blue blur races past them and sends Clint flying, tumbling down over the edge of the road, across the rocky verge and over the low wall that marks the edge of the bridge.

Without pausing to think, Steve lunges for him and grabs hold of the only thing he can; Clint’s bow. There’s a strangled yell and Steve‘s heart stops in his chest as he’s yanked forwards, grabbing hold of the stone parapet with his metal hand, ending up prone and splayed half over the edge.

There‘s a moment in which he’s not entirely sure what’s happened, breathing heavily and staring down below him with wide eyes, pulse hammering madly.  

“Good catch,” Clint says, like he’s not dangling in space two hundred feet above a ravine, holding onto nothing but the other end of his bow. He swings gently back and forth, looking down. “Fuck me, that’s a long way down.”

A distant memory swims; Steve recalls falling past snow covered mountainsides, terror in every bone of his body. He clenches his eyes and abruptly hauls Clint back up onto solid ground in a heave that leaves them both sprawled in a less than dignified heap on the snow-flecked ground.

“Bucky?” Steve snaps into his comm, pushing Clint off of him. “Bucky? Goddamit, I’m going to kill whoever did that, kid or not!”

“Whoa, whoa,” Clint protests, staggering to his feet and immediately drawing an arrow. “You heard him, no killing.”

“You just nearly died!” Steve bellows. “Fuck capture or evade!”

“You heard what Cap said!” Clint yells back. “Look, you are on an Avengers mission. I know you’ve got issues, fuck me I know. I get it, alright. But you are here with us, so you have to goddamn act like one of us! If you can’t, get back on that fucking jet because none of us are going to let you kill a pair of kids!”

Steve looks at Clint, still breathing heavily.

“Come on. They still need us. Put a lid on it, do whatever you have to,” Clint says urgently. “Just don’t fuck it up, Bucky needs you on this _._ ”

Steve nods tersely. They take off running again, not looking back.

 

* * *

 

 

Thankfully, the comms start working again before Steve can start breaking kneecaps to get information about where Bucky is. He, Sam and Nat are dealing with a contingent of very persistent Hydra troops; the enhanced beings seem to have vanished for the time being. Hulk is dealing efficiently - albeit messily - with the tanks, and Tony and Clint are securing the weapons. That leaves Steve stalking the corridors on the lookout for the enhanced beings and anything else that could be a threat.

His booted feet echo on the stone floors as he steals down the corridors, eyes bright and alert behind his domino mask.  He gets nearly to the end of the corridor before he hears something; footsteps moving rapidly back and forth and the rustling of papers, things being moved. A curt voice calling out an instruction in German; he quickens his pace, not wanting whoever it is to get away. The two guards outside the doorway are quickly dealt with, and he leaves them slumped on the floor, unconscious but alive.

He whips around the corner of the doorway, gun held up. The figure in the room wheels around, stepping back when they see him standing there. There’s a long moment of silence. In his peripheral vision, Steve can see a half-packed case, a desk strewn with papers and maps. Behind the desk, along the wall, are cabinets and shelves full of what looks like SHIELD tech.

“The Winter Soldier,” the man says slowly. It’s Von Strucker; Steve recognizes him from Bucky’s briefing. “So nice of you to join me.”

“Hands up,” Steve orders quietly, and then touches his comm. “I got Strucker. South corridor, four rooms down from the main staircase. Alone and unarmed.”

“Way to go,” Bucky’s voice says triumphantly. “Wrap him up. We’re on the way.”

“You okay with this, Steve?” Tony asks. “Remember-”

“Da,” Steve says, and cuts the comm link, turning his full attention back to Von Strucker.

“Have you come to kill me?” Von Strucker asks. “I hear that is where your skillset starts and ends.”

Steve doesn't reply. He stays utterly silent, watching Von Strucker carefully, ready for a non-lethal shot if he tries anything.

“Or maybe,” Von Strucker continues. “You’re going to take me alive. Which is honestly what I would expect from the other Captain America.”

Steve goes very, very still. “What did you just say?”

Von Strucker now smiles, looking almost amused even as his eyes glitter with malice. “It’s funny, really. From Captain America to this.”

The world drops out from underneath Steve’s feet. He can hear an odd ringing in his ears as shock fills him from head to toe. His metal fingers twitch as his breath stalls in his chest, snarled and painful.

“Oh yes,” Von Struckers voice says, a million miles away. “Don’t look so shocked. I am a Head of Hydra, and you really think I would not know what happened to our pet project? It was such a shame when the Captain managed to break your conditioning in Washington. Such a valuable asset lost-”

“Stop,” Steve says roughly. “Shut up.”

“Do you remember yet?” Von Strucker says. “How far we pushed you to make you break? I hear it was both horrifying and glorious.”

“I said stop!” Steve yells, voice cracking. He strides forwards, presses the barrel of his gun against Von Strucker’s forehead.

“I will tell no-one,” Von Strucker quickly says, eyes darting between Steve’s. “I will tell no-one who you are, I will burn the files that recount all the things you did for us. All the murders, all the acts of terror.”

“And why would you do that?” Steve asks. “You could ruin the Avengers with that kind of information.”

“I would do that if you escort me out of this castle and fly me to a safe destination,” Von Strucker says. “My safety, for secrecy about your past,” and then pauses and adds, “Captain.”

Steve pulls the trigger.

 

* * *

 

 

He doesn’t know how long he stands there. He stares down at the body at his feet, and very carefully feels nothing. Somewhere in the back of his mind he feels like he’s completed a mission, but he doesn’t have missions anymore, so it _doesn’t make sense._

In his hands is a file. A thick card wallet full of sheaves of paper. A hand-written history of every thing that was done to turn him into who he is today. He hasn’t looked through it properly. He’s not sure he ever could.

Footsteps make him look up.

“Steve,” Tony says quietly from the doorway, his helmet off and held in armoured hands. He looks down at the body at Steve’s feet, face giving away nothing.  

“He knew,” Steve says. He needs Tony to understand that he’s not just done this because he’s reckless, or because he can’t be trusted. “He knew who I was.”

Tony won’t meet his eyes. “You need to come with me, now,” he says dully.

Steve resists. Something’s wrong. Tony still won’t look at him.

“Tony?”

Tony flinches, a barely there motion that Steve notices regardless. “You need to come with me,” he repeats and then swallows thickly before looking up and squaring his jaw. “That’s an order.”

Steve nods, picks up his gun and follows Tony without another word.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The jet slowly descends in a subdued arc to settle on the rain-soaked green in front of the SHIELD headquarters. Raindrops plunk off the bodywork as the engines die, falling silent under the sad shroud of the misting rain. It is quickly surrounded, black uniforms and guns and Nick Fury at the front of the wall. They don’t storm the jet, but instead stand still as statues, waiting for the team to make the first move.

Bucky comes to Steve, where he’s sitting at the very back of the jet, tucked away from the others. They’ve been arguing and talking and arguing and talking for the entire journey home, voices angry and fractious. Steve hasn’t joined in. Tony had ordered him to stay put, so he had, not permitted to join the discussion.

Bucky kneels down in front of him. Steve’s mind dimly registers the trust Bucky shows in placing himself in such a vulnerable position, so easy to be taken down with a kick or a well-placed knee. His eyes are red but his jaw is squared, clenched against wavering emotions. 

“SHIELD’re telling me I have to hand you over,” Bucky says, heartbroken. “And the rest of the team agree.”

“I don’t!” Clint’s voice yells angrily from the front. 

“Clint will you _shut the fuck up!”_ Bucky shouts back, voice rising and cracking to almost a scream. He shuts his eyes and swallows hard, pulling himself together.

“Tony?” Steve says, and Bucky looks down and away. He doesn’t say anything just rubs at his forehead like he wants it all to stop.

Oh.

“So,” Bucky says, quietly. “If you want to knock me out now and go fight your way through fifty SHIELD agents, here’s your window.”

Steve breathes out through his nose, looking to the back door of the jet. It’s starting to dawn on him the true impact of what he’s done; it’s looking like it’s not just limited to inconvenience about SHIELD losing a source of intel.  His fingers tighten on the file. He’s refused to let it go, and he’s not sure he would even if Tony told him to. It’s everything he’s ever tried to hide from, clutched between his hands. 

“Steve?”

Bucky’s voice echoes in his ears. Steve blinks, clears his throat. He can’t take the file with him, can’t hope to destroy it before he comes face to face with SHIELD. Doesn’t want Bucky or Tony to see it - Bucky is already in pieces and he won’t put either of them through the hell of knowing what happened, what Hydra did.

“Romanov. Can I talk to Natasha?”

“Nat?” Bucky asks, bewildered. “Steve, you’ve got five seconds to make a run-”

“Please.”

Bucky exhales, rubs at his mouth. “Nat,” he calls without looking away from Steve. She pads over quietly and stands waiting. Her face shows no curiosity, no pity, nothing.  Wordlessly, Steve hands her the file. She blinks at him and then takes it.

“Ya v vashikh rukakh,” Steve says dully.

Natasha nods very slowly. “I’ll keep it safe,” she says, no inflection in her voice. He doesn’t know if he can trust her, but right now she’s his only option. The only one who might understand. 

Steve nods in return, and then holds out his hands to Bucky. Bucky’s chin trembles and he nods; a tear tracks its way down his face and he wipes it away roughly before reaching up into the compartments next to them for a pair of forearm cuffs. They’re adamantium reinforced, the same kind Steve had been restrained in when he’d arrived at the tower all those months ago. 

There’s no more talk of escape attempts. Bucky locks the cuffs in place around Steve’s forearms and pulls him to his feet, before starting to remove all of Steve’s weapons from their various hiding places on his suit. The back of the jet clunks and the door winds down, subdued droplets of water falling from the edge of the metal. The agents around them remain perfectly still, weapons trained on the jet.

“This is not how this ends,” Bucky says as he takes hold of Steve’s metal arm. “I fuckin’ swear to you Steve, I don’t care if you shot the president-”

“Bucky,” Nat says sharply. 

“You know what I fuckin’ mean,” Bucky snaps back. “Steve, I’ll get you out of this mess.”

“Let’s see the extent of the mess first,” Tony’s voice says, and he steps up on Steve’s other side. He’s still in the suit with the helmet off, and he looks exhausted. His eyes meet Steve’s and they’re too bright, full of unhappy complicated things that Steve hates to see.

He takes hold of Steve’s other elbow. Clint appears with his bow and stands in front of Steve, shoulders squared and an arrow nocked loosely on his bow. “If any of them shoot at him, I’m shooting back.” 

“I’d say don’t shoot anyone, but that order seems to be having minimal effect today,” Tony says, but it’s not a joke like it normally is, it’s flat and bitter and it hurts Steve to hear. Tony seems to realize what he‘s said and glances to Steve, pulling a carefully controlled expression into place over what he was feeling or thinking before.

“We got you,” he says, eyes locked on Steve’s, and Steve can see heartbreak there, too. “Cap’s right, we’ll get you out of this mess.”

A heavily modulated voice calls out through the rain. It’s Fury, his somber tones telling the Avengers to hand over the Winter Soldier. Tony’s fingers tighten on Steve’s elbow. Clint takes the first step and everyone follows, the team leading Steve from the jet.

 

* * *

 

“So. You were given orders for this mission, yes?”

There’s a pause, the rustle of clothing. 

“Who gave you your orders for this mission, Steve?”

The sound of soft, measured breathing. A shoe being set down on the floor as legs are crossed and uncrossed.

“Was it Captain Barnes?”

Steve doesn’t move. He just sits, staring down at the table in front of him. He hasn’t said a word since they bought him in, stripped him out of his uniform and shoved him into a pair of orange scrubs. Not even as they pushed him into the chair he’s currently bolted into, with restrains around his waist, ankles, thighs, wrists and a heavy metal plate over his left shoulder, keeping his arm pressed down. 

He could probably still pull the chair apart if he wanted.

Across the table, there’s a soft exhale of breath. “Steve. You need to start giving us answers, or we’ll have to bring the rest of the team in.”

Steve lifts his eyes to the man across the table. He’s in a bland suit with bland glasses on his bland face, looking calm and collected in a way that means he’s been trained to look calm and collected. 

“Who gave you your orders?” the man repeats calmly.

Steve rolls his head to the side, the metal shoulder plate digging into his neck. “ Eto imeyet znacheniye? ”

“Yes, it matters,” the man replies.

“Why?”

The man sighs, takes off his glasses and cleans them on his tie. It’s a stalling tactic. He’s probably having instructions read into the earpiece that Steve knows he’s got. He puts his glasses back on, meets Steve’s gaze straight on.

“It seems that there is an asset that Captain Barnes is not fully in control of.  We need to make sure that he and the rest of the Avengers are not a liability.”

So, the direct approach then. Steve can appreciate that. His mouth crooks in a twisted smile which fades as he looks up to meet the man’s eyes again. “Nyet,” he says. “Just me.”

* * *

 

 

The cell is silent. Three white walls, one reinforced glass one. A single mat in the corner of the room, not even a bed. A metal toilet firmly affixed in the other corner. Nothing that Steve could easily pull apart and weaponise. It’s dark; the lights turn off at ten PM every night and flicker back on at seven. Cameras on the other side of the glass watch him dispassionately. They don’t care if he should be here or not.  

It’s cold too. 

Steve sits against the wall, knees pulled up, metal hand on the back of his head. For so long, he’s craved the silence and cold that he‘s now found himself in. 

It’s not as comforting as he thought it would be.

 

* * *

Four days in, and he gets visitors other than the SHIELD psychiatric team and delegates from the WSC.  He’s on his sixty-eighth set of push-ups when the airlock doors open; he turns his head to see Bucky and Fury walking into the room adjacent to his, followed by two guards. Fury reaches out to click a panel on the wall and sound fills Steve’s cell; voices and footsteps and movement and-

“Screw,” Bucky says irritably, jerking his thumb at the officers. “Go paint a fence or something.”

The two guards look at Fury, who nods, and they both leave the room without looking back. Steve climbs to his feet as Bucky walks right over to the window, looking pained. 

“Jesus, Steve - Fury, let him out, for fuck’s sake.”

“No,” Fury says without inflection.

“Go fuck yourself,” Bucky replies over his shoulder before turning back to Steve, lifting a hand uselessly. He swallows, hard. “Orange really isn’t your color, pal.”

Steve shrugs, even though it feels like he’s just been punched in the chest. “They didn’t have black in my size.”

Bucky huffs, scrubbing his hand over his face. Fury walks up slowly to stand shoulder to shoulder with him. Bucky’s in civilian dress, and his battered boots and jeans look especially out-of-place next to Fury’s spotless black leather. 

“Rogers,” Fury says slowly, settling his hands behind his back like he’s in parade rest. “How are you holding up?”

Steve doesn’t reply, just looks at Bucky. “They keep interviewing me. They’re trying to get me to say you ordered me to kill Strucker.”

“Maybe you should,” Bucky mutters. “That’d get you off the hook.”

“No it would not, it would simply have you put in a cell next door,” Fury says, sounding unimpressed. He sighs, lifts his chin and raises his voice to continue with, “Security blackout, two minutes. Authorized by Fury, Nicholas J.”

Bucky looks around at the cameras, unsure. “Blackout?”

“Two minutes,” Fury says. “To figure this out.”

Steve doesn’t trust Fury, but Bucky sort of does so Steve decides just to go with it. He hasn’t got many options here. “This goes further than the issue of Strucker being unavailable for intel, doesn’t it?”

Nodding, Bucky shifts restlessly from one foot to the other. “This is now an issue of whether you should be allowed to be out of containment. Apparently they’ve been keeping a log of all the times you’ve turned up and haven’t followed orders.... You kinda just handed them an excuse on a plate.”

Fury turns his gaze to Steve. “You make people uneasy,” he says unapologetically. “Some would call it scared. Word on the street is that Captain Barnes is no longer in control of his attack dog.”

It’s a good job there’s a glass wall between him and Fury right now. “Bucky had nothing to do with what I did,” Steve says shortly. “He ordered me to use non-lethal force.”

“And you ignored him,” Fury says. “Which they’re saying is clear evidence that you’re not safe to be out there.”

“They can’t do this,” Bucky bursts out, kicking at the glass window between him and Steve. “You killed Strucker because of what Hydra did to you, no-one can convict you for that.”

“You can’t use that,” Fury says. “Steve is not Captain America. Never was.”

“Bullshit!” Bucky yells. “He was and I’m not going to let the world punish him over what those bastards did to him!”

“I was  _ not _ ,” Steve bangs his metal hand against the glass window, clenched into a fist. “Bucky, we’re not going there.”

“If we go down that route then we open up a whole can of worms,” Fury says. “People will know we’ve been lying for the past six years-” 

“Oh my god, not this again!” Bucky shouts. “I’m fed up of lying about this! I’ve done it so far but this is not fair-”

“Bucky, we are not going there,” Steve repeats. “I’d rather stay here.”

Bucky’s jaw drops and he jerks back as if Steve has swung for him. “Don’t say that.”

“Then stop talking about me being Captain America,” Steve hisses back. “You tell anyone and I’ll deny it, every word.”

Bucky stares at him, and Steve thinks maybe it’d be  _ Bucky  _ he’d be scrapping with if there were no barrier between them. Bucky looks beyond furious, frustrated and betrayed. It breaks Steve’s heart to see, but he won’t back down. He can’t.

He presses his metal hand against the glass, fingers spread. “Bucky, I can’t.  Ne zastavlyayte menya eto delat.  Bud'te dobry, ” he says and abruptly stops, because he’s not sure how much Russian Fury understands, and he’s not about to be caught begging.

He meets Bucky’s eyes again, desperate. Silently repeating his plea in his head.  _ Don’t make me do it. Please. _

Bucky seems to crumple, all the strength going out of him. He nods jerkily. “Fine,” he says. “Okay, your call. I’ll find - I’ll try and find another way.” 

There’s a long silence. Steve wishes Fury would fuck off so he could speak to Bucky, so he could ask about the rest of the team. He shifts slightly, and then Bucky slowly looks up and presses his hand to the glass, right atop Steve’s metal one. 

Fury breaks the silence. “Two minutes are up,” he says. “Cap, we have to go.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky says, but he doesn’t take his hand away. “Steve, you want anything bringing?”

He glances to Fury, and decides that he  _ has _ to know, whether Fury is there or not. “Where’s Tony?” he asks, and Bucky almost flinches.

“He didn’t come,” Bucky says with a shrug, taking his hand down. “Wasn’t allowed.”

Steve doesn’t buy it. He keeps his hand on the glass, even as Bucky steps back. “Buck. Don’t lie to me.”

Bucky makes an aggrieved noise. “Alright, he wouldn’t come,” he says, gesturing at nothing, a helpless wave of hands that feel utterly powerless. “He’s - he’s a bit of a mess about this whole thing. He’s not sure he can see you right now.”

Steve’s stomach drops. Something cold crawls its way up his spine.  “What? Why?”

“I don’t know, I’m not his fuckin’ therapist!” Bucky snaps, and then takes a breath, voice going calmer, apologetic. “You scared the team, Steve, not just him. All that shouting about killing those kids, the mess with Strucker. The only one who isn’t freaked out is  _ Clint _ , fuck knows why.”

“But - I told Tony,” Steve says. “I explained why I did it-”

“Maybe...maybe it’ll take a while for it to make sense to him?” Bucky suggests. “I don’t know, Stevie. Just wait it out, okay? You’ll be out of here in no time to sort it out.”

“Cap,” Fury repeats and Bucky jerks irritably.

“I’m gettin’, I’m gettin’. Okay, Steve. Sit tight. I’ll be back soon.”

“Where are you going?”

“Back to Sokovia,” Bucky sighs. “Chasing those damn kids.”

“You mean the kids that nearly killed Clint?” Steve asks in disbelief. “Buck-”

“We can handle it,” Bucky says, his mind already on something new. He looks tired, harried. “You just stay put and think of some way that we can get you out of here that doesn’t involve murder, okay?”

Steve nods jerkily. Bucky thumps his fists against the glass and then leaves, shoving his hands into his pockets and slouching down, the weight of the world on his shoulders. Steve watches him go, jaw clenched tightly, because if Bucky expected him to be able to just sit there while they waltz right into trouble, then he’s got another thing coming.

 

* * *

Breaking out isn’t exactly easy, but it’s not the hardest thing Steve’s ever done. It’s a combination of timing, faking injury, manipulation of the calm, blonde SHIELD agent that Steve suspects is sympathetic to him and a little bit of brute force. 

Then, it’s all about outrunning them. He manages it, making his way to a civilian airfield to take a craft that won’t have trackers that SHIELD can instantly follow. 

It’s a clean, tidy job. So much in fact, that when he finds himself in Sokovia, walking through the market in stolen civilian clothing, he’s beaten the Avengers there. He keeps to the shadows, inconspicuous and quiet. He sits in cafes and orders food in Russian; the locals wrinkle their nose at him, but they’re used enough to Russian tourists and immigrants so that their mild irritation doesn’t escalate into anything more.  

He spots two pickpockets during the day but leaves them to their business; that is not what he is here for. A police car meanders by, but does not cause him any concern. He sits still and watchful, listening for any words of excitement that could indicate the arrival of the Avengers, or anything that could indicate the presence of the two enhanced beings. He has no doubt that Bucky and the team know who they are by now, but seeing as he’s been in supermax jail for the last few days, he’s not exactly been handed any intelligence to work with.

The day passes, fades into night. He books into a hotel: thin walls and a creaking single bed, pictures on the walls of idyllic Sokovian countryside. His hotel-neighbors are loud, argumentative. It annoys him; he doesn’t want any attention drawing to the building.

The city is reborn as the sun vanishes, reanimating in lights and laughter, music and enjoyment. Steve pulls on a jacket and treads out into the night, pulling his hood up in lieu of his cap. He steals from street to street like a shadow, unobtrusive and of no interest to the people around him.

It doesn’t take long to find something.

Talk of supplies. Talk of the twins coming back. Talk of help finally arriving.

He finds them both in the small market square outside the church, handing out what he suspects are stolen medicines. They’re probably doing what they feel is right, but that is not Steve’s place to judge. It’s his place to take them out before the Avengers get there and get hurt. 

He takes a deep breath and starts to walk forwards.  _ Mission. Neutralize threat. _

The boy spots him first. He cries out something in Sokovian and turns to face Steve as he advances. Steve is ready for him this time around; the boy darts forwards with shocking speed, but Steve swings and his metal fist hits the boy right in the chest, sending him flying backwards. There’s screaming and shouting as the boy hits the wall and then slumps forwards in a crumpled heap. He’s alive; he pushes himself onto hands and knees and manages to choke out, “Wanda, run!” just before Steve lunges at him and knocks him out cold.

One down.

Steve straightens up. People are running from him; the night air has turned panicked and full of terror. He does not care. He walks forwards slowly, deliberately, watching the girl vanish along the side of the church.

She cannot run as fast as her brother. He will catch her.

He walks into the darkness of the alley. The church towers on one side, an old worn brick building on the other. He walks on, and the girl steps to face him, mid-way down the alley and cast in shadow . She’s either brave or stupid. Maybe both.

“Leave us alone,” she says, in accented English. He can’t see her face; it’s too dark.

“You nearly killed an Avenger,” Steve replies coldly. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

“We killed no-one.”

“You tried,” Steve says, and he crouches down to pull a knife from his ankle, the cold metal hidden under the black denim of his stolen jeans. He straightens up, watches her step back in fear. He does not care. This is his mission. He walks on. He will not kill her; his handler will be disappointed if he does. He will just stop her. 

“Nem!”

She throws up her hands as if to protect herself. A fraction of a second too late, Steve realizes that the gesture is something else entirely. She curls her fingers, and the whole world goes red.

The alley is gone. So is the church, and the crumbling factory building that stood next to it. He’s no longer in Sokovia.

He’s back there, back then, on stage and pinned in place by too-bright spotlights. The auditorium is packed; expectant faces all look up at him, excited and eager. He’s thrown for a moment, looking left and right, and as he spots a line of waiting chorus girls tucked behind the curtain, the penny drops.

Oh no.

Hi fingers tighten involuntarily. Flesh on metal; his real left hand on the edge of his shield. 

_ ‘And give a warm welcome to Captain America!’  _ A tinny voice calls over the speakers and the crowd surges to their feet, applauding.

“No,” Steve tries to say, backing up. The spotlights follow him. “That’s not me-”

The crowd doesn't listen. Flashbulbs go off like bombs, reporters are writing notes, the scratching of their pens and pencils dragging under Steve’s skin, raw and sharp against his nerves. In the front row, Bucky and Tony are cheering, looking so proud. A voice over the loudspeaker loudly extols the greatness of the war-winning Captain America, the paragon of justice and freedom-

Abruptly, the voice screeches to a halt with the pained whine of a stalled microphone. The backdrop screen behind Steve flickers to life. The crackling of a movie-reel about to start. An accented voice takes the place of the first, dark and soothing.

_ “Be calm, Captain Rogers. The procedure has already begun.” _

The crowd is falling silent, uncertain. The applause slowly stops as the screen comes into focus, showing a man sitting in a chair, locked in place with heavy restraints. His head lolls forwards, his flesh and metal fingers shake where they grip the arms of the chair. 

“Who are you?”

The man tries to lift his head, chest heaving. “Captain America.”

A flare and a flash of electricity, and someone starting to scream. Steve feels the bottom of his stomach drop out as he watches in horror, because that’s  _ him _ , he knew they’d filmed him but never expected to see this, never expected to have to relive this- 

The film flickers. A new day. Still he sits in the chair. His ears and nose are bleeding. His eye is swollen. His fingers continue to shake.

“Who are you?”

This time there’s a pause. And when he finally says ‘ _ Captain America _ ,’ it’s in a voice choked with tears. The electricity comes again, and so does the awful screaming. A voice in the background murmurs, poisonous words in his ear. 

_ America did this to you. Do you know their plan for you after the war? Do you know how many civilians are dead? Do you know how many they plan to let die? Let me show you what your government have done... _

People in the audience are starting to cry. Steve starts to move, trying to make his way out of the auditorium, to find the projector and smash it to pieces. The doors hold fast though; bound with the same unbreakable chains from his nightmares. Desperate, he turns and runs to Tony and Bucky, grabbing Tony roughly by the shoulders. On the screen, needles glint in the light. 

“Don’t watch,” he says, grabbing Tony by the shoulders and shaking him. “Tony, don’t look-”

Tony carries on watching, eyes wide and horrified. On his other side, Bucky stands with his hands over his mouth, tears in his eyes. He can hear himself begging, pleading, the hiss of heat on flesh and the screaming, why won’t it stop,  _ why won’t they stop. _

“Stop!” he hears himself scream. “I’ll do anything, just - I need to get back to Bucky, no, he needs my help!"

The screaming descends into sobbing, and then fades into nothing. The room is silent. Steve doesn't want to look, but it’s as if he’s not under his own control, an unwilling, macabre need that has him turning his head to see.

The Steve captured forever in black and white film stands there in front of the chair, no longer restrained. No longer in red, white and blue.

“Who are you?”

Steve watches himself lift his chin, eyes dull and flat. He feels his gut tighten as he waits for the filmed version of him to say-

“The Soldier.”

“And what do you believe in, Soldat?”

The Steve on the video screen blinks slowly. Flexes his metal fingers at his side. "Nothing."

“What are you doing?” Tony says, eyes still fixed on the screen. “Steve, what are you doing?”

There’s a voice begging. Gunshots. Steve knows what he did, what they’re watching. He hears his own voice shouting in Russian, the screams of women and children, the frightened pleas of men. 

"Who do you work for?"

"Hydra."

"Why?"

When he replies, he’s speaking in faultless Russian, like it’s been hardwired into his brain beside his mother-tongue. He remembers exactly what he said, traitorous words falling effortlessly from his mouth.

"To get rid of the corrupt leaders of the modern world. To reshape the future for the people. To help those who cannot be trusted with their own freedom."

"Good, good,” the voice says encouragingly. There’s the shuffling of paper, and someone hands him a photo. It’s Bucky. “Do you recognize this man?"

Steve looks at the photo then shakes his head and hands it back. “Nyet.”

Behind him, the crowd starts to shift restlessly. Anger brews like storm clouds, weighing heavily on the air. Uneasy, Bucky looks behind them at the crowd, then back to Steve. “You have to fix this Steve-”

“He can’t,” Tony cuts across him, and he looks lost and confused. “He failed. He  _ broke. _ ”

“I didn't,” Steve hears himself say. “I can put this right-”

“You can't!” A voice from the crowd shouts. Oh god, it’s  _ Howard.  _ Looking at him furiously, betrayed and bitter. “All that work wasted on  _ this. _ ”

More angry voices join Howard’s. Steve tries to back away, feeling like a hunted dog. Erskine steps up behind Tony, shaking his head and looking so disappointed that Steve wants to curl up and cry. The commandos too, and Peggy, looking disgusted and sickened with him.

“You were supposed to be a good man.”

“Lock him up, we can’t trust him!”

“He’ll kill us all!”

“Steve!”

Tony steps back. “You’re never going to be able to put it right,” he says, shaking his head. 

“Steve, no!”

“I can,” he pleads.

“Steve, don’t!”

“You _can’t,”_ Tony bites out, and Steve can’t stand it anymore; his left hand shoots out and he grasps Tony by the neck, fingers squeezing, the words ringing in his ears-

“Steve, no!”

The auditorium blinks out, dissolving in a mist of red. Reality starts up again around him, the darkness of the alley replaces the glaring stage-lights, the baying crowd gives way to the distant voice of traffic and civilians. Somewhere far away he can hear wailing sirens; much closer there is shouting, two bodies trying desperately to pull him off the girl who he has pinned to the rough cobbles of the alley, his metal hand clamped around her neck.

“Steve, get off!”

That’s Clint, and the other side is Sam. There’s the sudden jolt of more weight against him and then he feels strength to rival his own join Clint on his left side; Bucky is there and trying to wrench him back. The girl chokes as she tries to draw a breath, pulling at his metal hand, panic in her face as it slowly goes red, as red as her eyes were a moment ago-

_ “ Steve, let her go !” _

The bellow comes from behind, and the instant Steve registers the voice, he releases his fingers and stands up, facing Tony. Clint and Sam duck down to haul the girl up and out of his way, and Bucky plants himself between them, shield raised.

“Stop,” Tony says harshly. His suit looks almost black in the darkness, only the faintest of glow from the lights of the church revealing red and gold. “Hands up.”

Steve does without thinking, lifting both hands above his head. There’s a strangled yell from somewhere nearby and the brother rushes forth, blue around the edges but unable to move at his full speed. He staggers to a halt beside his sister, trying to take in what has happened and also extricate her from Clint’s grip. He’s not having any success, as she’s still clinging desperately to Clint, looking very afraid and out of her depth. Her brother looks like he wants to rip Steve apart, and he’s foolish enough to take a step forwards, but Sam moves just enough to block him, warning him to stay clear.

“Stand down Roadrunner, I got him,” Tony says. The faceplate is down, the expressionless mask of Iron Man pinning Steve in place with his gaze. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“She got in my head,” Steve says. “She - she knows.”

The armor doesn’t move an inch. “You running from your past is starting to get people hurt.”

“People bringing up my past is getting them hurt,” he replies harshly.

There’s a faint click, and the faceplate shifts and retracts, revealing Tony’s exhausted looking face. He breathes in and shuts his eyes for a long moment, fighting back something he doesn’t want anyone to see. He exhales and opens his eyes again. “What are you even doing here?” Tony asks him. “You said you would stay put and let us help you out.”

“You were at risk-”

“And you’re one fuck up away from Death Row!” Tony yells at him. “We do not need you following us around like some fucked up guardian angel, Steve!”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Steve yells back. “Let you get hurt?”

“Yes!” Tony bellows back, and then reigns himself in, mouth twisting as he looks down. “Right, everyone clear out. Clint, get Sabrina and Speedy Gonzales over there out of the way and on the jet. Tell them if they want any hope of amnesty after siding with Von Strucker, they’re going to accept the invitation and be on their best behavior. Bucky, will you give me a minute with Steve?”

Bucky nods curtly, turns to the youngsters. “You want help? Follow me.”

“You think I want help from Stark, you can think twice,” the boy spits out.

“Okay. Then accept help from me, and we will sort out your issues with Stark, I promise,” Bucky says. “But right now your worry is the Winter Soldier, and Stark is currently keeping him from going for you, so either run along and hope you can keep out of his way, or  _ get on the fucking jet. _ ”

The boy looks at the girl, still defiant and angry. “Pietro,” she says. “We need help. They are willing to forgive.”

And he stares at her for a long moment and then nods curtly, following Bucky away from the scene.

Steve watches them go, and then turns to Tony. 

“You are in so much trouble,” Tony mutters, almost to himself rather than Steve, and he sounds  _ done _ . Exhausted and wrecked.

Steve doesn’t know what to do now. His mission is obsolete, now Bucky has intervened and taken the twins. “What do you want me to do?”

Tony seems to think it over. “Okay,” he finally says slowly, lifting his chin. The shadows slide over his face, darkening the contours like bruises. “We’re going to go back into the market and through to the streets in the old town, you know where I mean? Okay, it’s pretty quiet there, so we can hijack a car and kill the driver so he can’t tell anyone that he’s seen you, drive out of the city and find somewhere to lie low.”

Steve nods. “Okay.”

Instead of making good on the plan, Tony just stares at him, not making any effort to move. “Are you serious?”

“What?”

“Are you fucking serious? I suggest we hijack a car and kill someone, and you say  _ okay? _ ”

“Well, we could find an unoccupied car-”

“The point is that you didn’t even blink!” Tony says, pressing an armored hand to his head and sounding like he can’t believe what he’s saying. “I know you don’t want to be Captain America anymore but seriously, there has got to be some scrap of you left that knows right from wrong!”

“You know right from wrong,” Steve says. “I trust you.”

Tony closes his eyes again. They stand there, ten feet apart in a dark and deserted alley on the outskirts of a Sokovian city, and Steve feels like the world is crumbling beneath his feet.

“It was after Von Strucker,” Tony finally says. He slowly opens his eyes, looking down at the cobbles between them. “When you followed me because I ordered you to.”

Steve feels wrong-footed. Something’s happening here; he feels trapped in a game that he doesn’t know the rules of.

“At first I told myself it’s because you loved me,” Tony says. “Hey, the guy listens to you instead of Bucky because he loves you.”

“I do,” Steve says.

“I know,” Tony says. He still won’t look at him. “But that’s not why you listen to me. You listen to me because in your head, I’m your handler.”  

“No,” Steve says, but it’s weak. The word tastes like ash in his mouth.

“Just  _ don’t, _ ” Tony says sharply, and Steve falls quiet. Tony notices, and starts to laugh, a horrid grating sound. “Well, I should have expected that.”

Steve clenches his jaw. “What do you want from me?”

“You're like two different people,” Tony says. “Jekyll and Hyde. Banner and Hulk. One of you wants to do the right thing and save the world with Bucky, wants to - I don’t know, wants to watch over Hawkeye to make sure he doesn’t fall out of the back of the jet, wants to do rounds at midnight to make sure we’re all safe. And then the other you just wants to not think about responsibility ever and wants to be told what to do. A perfect soldier. Well, you’re not a perfect soldier because the first part keeps making you ignore orders, but then the first part is all fucked up because the soldier part keeps undermining your own sense of judgement...”

Tony stops talking, shaking his head and huffing out a breath. His eyes are too bright. “You can’t be both. And I won’t be responsible for you.”

“Am I that bad?”

“I have to remind you to eat,” Tony suddenly snaps at him, clearly not appreciating Steve’s attempt to lighten the tone. “To  _ sleep.  _ And I have to tell you not to kill people - my conscience is heavy enough without taking on the responsibility for being yours as well.”

Something strange is rising up in Steve’s chest, a swell of discomfort that’s making his innards feel twisted inside-out. It feels like grief, but surely he’d only feel grief if he’d lost someone-

Oh.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I’m not being your conscience anymore,” Tony says. “I won’t be your handler.”

“I-” Steve begins. Tries to find words. “No-one trusts my judgement-”

“Trust your own fucking judgement!” Tony snaps. “You were Captain America, you have it in you to-”

“No,” Steve cuts across him, the memories and fear from the vision lurking in his peripheries. “I wasn’t.” 

Now Tony is looking desperate. “Come on. You know what people say about you - the jokes they make at SHIELD. You’re more than an attack-dog, you’re a member of the team, I know you can trust yourself, you just have to-”

“Nyet,” Steve snaps, and Tony’s face goes rigid.

“Fine,” he says. “Find yourself another handler. I’m out.”

The grief tightens, coalesces into reality. Steve steps forwards, reaching out with metal fingers. “Don't leave.”

Tony won’t look at him. “If you’re not going to back down and help yourself, then we’re done.”

Steve doesn't say a word. He lowers his hand.

“Well,” Tony says, his voice thick. “Can’t say I saw this coming. Not like this.”

He twitches, an aborted move like he wants to step towards Steve but makes himself stop. 

“Meccanico-”

“No,” Tony cuts him off, abrupt. “No more Italian.”

He doesn’t look at Steve as he turns away, taking off in a roar of repulsors, leaving Steve alone in the darkness.

 

* * *

The cage door slams shut. This time, Steve is pinned in place in the reinforced chair, bolted and strapped in. He’ll be released for half an hour twice every twelve hours, for toilet breaks and food. He’ll have to sleep sitting up.

“Come on, he won’t go anywhere!” Bucky is heard yelling outside the room. “This is unnecessary!”

“He escaped once like he was taking a walk in the park,” Fury replies. “Consider that his one free pass. He will not be getting another.”

“He handed himself back in!”

“That is  _ not  _ the point.”

They carry on arguing. Steve tunes it out, stares at the wall. Absently flexes his metal fingers. Thinks of the floor beyond the chair, which he’s been told will electrocute him if he steps on it at an unauthorized time. Thinks of the vision, the memories of the electricity, the heat and the needles and the pain.

Swallowing hard, he shuts his eyes and feels hot tears threaten behind his eyelids. 

 

* * *

_ Hold on _ , Bucky says.  _ We’ll get you out, _ Clint tells him. Sam, Bruce and Natasha don’t visit. 

Neither does Tony.

 

* * *

Days start to bleed together. The only thing that stops Steve from losing all sense of time are the regularity of the half hour breaks and the lights that turn off at night. Visiting hour does serve to separate the endless minutes too, but it brings a different kind of pain. Some days it’s Bucky, once it’s Clint. Some days they don’t let anyone in at all, and he’s left wondering if this is the day that everyone follows Tony’s lead and says  _ no more _ . 

He thinks about what Tony said. How he’s two people. It echoes with the words of Erskine, the pledge to be not a perfect soldier, but a good man.

He’s not managing to be either. 

He supposed he could be a perfect soldier again. He was while he worked for Hydra. But that would mean following orders to the letter, not ignoring them when he feels like something isn’t right. Ignoring that part of him that wants to step up and protect the others.

That fucking part which he's now pretty sure Bucky was right about; his latent Captain America kicking in. 

He can’t trust that part. Hydra broke that part; tore him apart and shattered him, twisted all of his thoughts to the extent that he willingly went along with what they wanted. Who’s to say that that isn’t still a part of him? He can’t trust that his decisions won’t be the decisions of Hydra, their influence still lurking in the back of his mind.

God, he misses Tony.

He misses sleeping next to him, being able to touch him, the taste of his mouth. He misses the calm quiet of the workshop, the way Tony makes space for him in his life, whispering soft Italian to him so no-one else can understand-

He tries not to think about it. That part of his life is over. Just like being Captain America, being with Tony is in the past and he knows that once things are over, he can never go back.

 

* * *

He thinks about escaping again. Going back to Russia, some place where the snow lies thick on the ground, and the air is still and silent.

But then he remembers the bite of electricity and is ashamed to admit that it’s fear that keeps him pinned in place, fear of the pain rising like bile, stopping him from ripping the chair apart and heading for the door. 

And he won’t say it out loud, but he can’t stand the thought of disappointing Bucky again. Or Tony, even though Tony no longer wants him. Even though it’s too late to do the right thing, he can’t bring himself to let them all down again by doing the wrong thing. 

He’s not even sure which is which anymore.

 

* * *

Steve looks up slowly as he hears the outer door open, and Bucky walks in, tray in hand and shield on his back.  

“Hey,” Bucky says softly, tiredly. He reaches back and swings the shield off of his shoulders, setting against the table leg, close to his feet. He steps forwards and slots the tray of food through the hatch on the outer cell wall, and then steps back, waiting. Nothing happens, and he scowls, turning to look at the camera. “It’s break time, assholes!”

There’s a hiss as the hatch seals itself, and then a secondary noise as the inner cell releases its door. A moment later and the restraints on the chair clunk open, allowing Steve to slowly climb out. He does, warily eyeing the floor.

“It’s off,” Bucky says. “If it isn’t, I’m going to smash security with my shield.”

Steve snorts and gingerly steps out of the interior cage. His bare foot makes contact with the floor without any shocks, so he climbs out and heads towards the shelf where his food tray sits.

“How are you holding up?” Bucky asks.

Steve doesn't reply as he picks through the meager offerings on his tray.

“Steve?”

“Got a pen?” Steve asks, picking up the bread roll and dropping it back down. “I miss drawing.”

“I’m not allowed to give you anything you could weaponize.”

“A pen,” Steve says flatly, looking at Bucky.

“Your track record speaks for itself,” Bucky says, in such a way that makes Steve suspect he’s mocking someone. 

Steve sighs, sits down on the floor with his tray, though he’s suddenly not feeling very hungry at all. He crosses his legs, picks up the small plastic fork he’s been allowed and pokes listlessly at what appears to be some sort of chili with rice. 

“Tony misses you.”

Steve’s hands falter. “Does this mean I’m ahead of you? You haven't done a breakup in this century yet.”

“You are not funny,” Bucky says shortly. “And shut up with your  _ yet _ . If Natasha hasn’t left me over this bullshit already, she’s not going to.”

“Don’t talk about Tony,” Steve says. “It’s over.”

“Not if you-”

“Bucky,” Steve says, warning. “It’s over.”

Bucky rubs at his face, weary. “Well, you’re not going to like what I want to talk about next, either.”

Steve pauses mid-bite. “What?”

“Dont freak out, or they’ll turn the floor on.”

“What?”

“Wanda told me what she saw in your head.”

Steve goes very, very still. He feels a hot swirl of anger and fear in his gut. She had no right to be inside his head, even less right to tell Bucky about it.

“She wanted to scare you,” Bucky says. Steve clenches his fists, ducks his head so he doesn’t have to look at Bucky, doesn’t have to remember the dream-version of him begging Steve to put it right.

“I’m so sorry.” 

Bucky’s voice is broken and catching. Steve looks up sharply, distress churning in his chest as he sees how close to tears Bucky is.

“Buck-”

“I looked for you,” Bucky says, more upset than Steve has seen him in a long time. “For days, I swear. I found your helmet but there was no trace of you-”

“I know,” Steve says, getting up and walking over to the glass window of the outer cell, dropping down to his knees. “I know you did.”

“I left you,” Bucky blurts out. “I left you to be tortured-”

“You didn’t,” Steve says fiercely. “This is  _ not  _ your fault.”

Bucky nods mutely, slides off his perch on the edge of the table and walks over to the glass partition, sinking to his knees in a mirror of Steve’s position. He lifts a hand and presses it to the glass and Steve responds straight away, pressing his real hand to the window atop Bucky's, separated by inches of reinforced glass.

“I didn't get that you were so scared,” Bucky says.

“I’m not.”

“Bullshit,” Bucky says fiercely. “Wanda told me everything. Why the fuck are you so scared of who you used to be?”

“Because I can’t be him anymore!” Steve bites back, temper snapping, sudden and vicious. Something in the back of the room beeps and Bucky hastily throws out a hand up towards the cameras.

“No, no, no, don’t you dare! He’s cool! Steve, stow it or they’ll turn the fucking floor back on!”

“You want me to talk or you want me to stow it? Make your mind up,” Steve snaps. “You want to know that they managed to tear down everything I believed in, made me think that killing for them was the right thing to do? You want to know everything I did? How about how I can‘t trust my own fucking judgement anymore because I was good, and they ruined it, and who the fuck knows if my conscience is my own or Hydra’s!”

He climbs to his feet and stalks away, climbing back into the inner cell and throwing himself down in his chair, slotting his arms and feet into the restraints. There’s a long pause and then they click and whir shut.

“Fuck you!” Bucky shouts, banging on the glass with his palm. “I picked up that shield because I believed in you, because I didn’t want to let you down!  _ Peggy _ told me to pick up the fucking shield because she believed in you! Tony puts up with your nightmares and your refusal to fucking communicate, because he believes in the good parts of you - he’s not a complete fucking masochist, he wouldn’t be with you if you weren't good somewhere!”

Steve grits his teeth, turns his face away.

“You are not a coward!” Bucky bellows at him. “I did not crash a plane in the arctic to live up to this!”

Bucky is escorted from the cells in short order. The interior cell is locked once more, and Steve is left alone. 

* * *

 

 

He has dreams. Nightmares. Sometimes he’s attempting to live up to what he was, and he fails and people die. Sometimes he doesn’t even try, and people die.

It’s enough to make him think about staying in his cage forever.

 

* * *

“Good morning, Steve.”

He looks up slowly at the voice he wasn't expecting. Tips his tired head back against the seat behind him, locks hazy eyes on Natasha as she stands in front of the glass outer wall, arms folded across her chest. Her hair is up, curls pinned in place, and she’s wearing jeans, high heeled boots and a loose T-shirt that Steve knows is Bucky’s. It hangs loose at the neck, revealing vulnerable looking collarbones and the slope of a shoulder.

He blinks at her. 

“I still have your file,” she says quietly. “Though I suppose that a lot of it is what Wanda has told everyone anyway.”

“Chitali li vy yego?” Steve asks.

She shakes her head. “No, I haven't read it,” she says. “You told me to keep it safe. You didn’t let Bucky have it. Which meant there were things you didn't want him to see.” Her mouth curves in a deprecating smile. “And if you didn’t want him to see, you didn't want anyone to see.”

“Why are you here?” he asks her tonelessly. He’s too tired for this. It’s been thirty-nine days since he’s seen Bucky, and every one has dragged like a lifetime. He’s hungry. His muscles ache from being confined to the chair. He misses Tony like the dull ache of a wound that won’t heal. Every time he contemplates breaking out of his cells, it’s with Tony in mind. Just to see him again, to touch him, to even face his anger. 

Natasha moves to fetch the chair from behind the table, the one that the SHIELD psychiatrist normally sits on. She brings it close to the glass and sets it sideways.

“I have a file too,” she says quietly, sinking down into her chair and crossing one leg over the other. “Just like yours.”

“Not like mine,” Steve says bitterly, and her mouth hitches in that same sad smile.

“Okay. Not completely like yours. But full of all the things I did. Full of every identity I created, every front and fake.”

“You still have it?”

Natasha inclines her head slowly. “When Bucky was found, they sent me to recruit him,” she says. “He was...difficult.” She leans her head against the window, temple on cool glass. “He had me figured straight away. Well, he figured that he didn’t have me figured, I guess. Said that he was  here to save the world, not to get jerked around by me. He called me a ‘fucking spy’ several times as well. I've never met anyone who curses as much as he does. Some days I think he uses the word 'fucking' just to show there's a noun on the way.” 

Steve frowns. “Why are you telling me this?”

Natasha sighs. “I  _ was  _ jerking him around, to begin with. And he made it very clear that he wasn’t interested in me and my spy games. That he wanted to get to know the real me. So, I let him see my file, so to speak.” 

She rolls her head against the glass, looks Steve in the eye. “Letting people know who you truly are is terrifying. Letting people know who you are when you don’t want to accept who you are is even worse.”

Steve looks her over slowly, not entirely trusting her motives even if he’s starting to understand what she’s getting at. “Is this supposed to make me accept my past and suddenly start being that guy again? Because your skills in manipulation are leaving a lot to be desired.”

“I’m not manipulating you,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “I’m talking to you as a person who knows a little of what you’re going through. And yes, I’m doing this for Bucky, and for Tony.” 

“You don’t like me being anywhere near Tony.”

“Because you are not good for him like this,” she says. “But he loves you and I won’t be able to get him to stop.”

Steve unhappily thinks back to Tony’s harsh words about being his handler, and he finds he can’t even argue with what Natasha is saying. He’s  _ not _ good for Tony like this.

“I know it’s hard,” Natasha says, and he believes that much at least. “You don’t face up to who you were, who you are, and you will lose Tony. You’ll lose Bucky, You’ll lose us.” Her pale eyes are serious and sad. “I would never have found Bucky if I didn’t go through all the horrible mess of letting him in.”

Steve swallows hard. His throat is going tight. “You can manage without Bucky.”

“Yes,” Natasha says. “But I don’t want to.”

He has to look away.

“Steve,” she says gently. “There are parts of me I wish I’d hidden forever. I owed Bucky to face up to them. If I wanted to love him, and be loved in return, I couldn’t keep faking it. I had to let at least him know the real me. And if I hadn't done that...Well. My team would have stayed my team and not my friends.”

“Except for Clint,” Steve says. “He’s always been your friend. Bucky said.”

“Well, Clint is an idiot whose judgement is really, really not to be trusted,” Natasha says with a shrug, but there’s a smile playing around her mouth. “I mean, he keeps saying he’s going to come break you out.”

“You don’t trust me,” Steve says.

“No,” Natasha says, unapologetic. “But I want to. I think - and I know this is hypocritical coming from me, believe me, I know - I think if I get to know the real you, I will.” She pauses, almost smiles at him again. “And we can go beat up bad guys together. It’ll be fun.”

Steve doesn’t smile, but he meets her eyes. “You chose to be all those different faces.”

She uncrosses her legs. “Not every time,” she says, somewhat cryptically. And then less so, “You’re not the only one that has dues to pay from time with Hydra.”

She stands up, picks up the chair and moves it back. 

“Natasha.”

She looks around over her shoulder, eyes not on Steve but clearly listening.

“Is Tony alright?”

She seems to think over her answer. “No,” she says. “But he can learn how to get by without you.”

Steve nods, the words a dull blow to his heart. “Tell him...I’ll try.”

She doesn't miss a beat. “In English or Italian?”

Steve is tempted to tell her to fuck off. Instead, he swallows his pride, looks down at his knees. “ Ital'yanskiy,” he says quietly, and then she’s gone without looking back. 

 

* * *

Steve doesn’t sleep that night. Natasha’s words rattle around inside his brain, ebbing back and forth like the tide. He sits in the darkness, clenching and unclenching the fingers of his metal hand. 

He thinks of Bucky. Thinks of  _ Tony _ .

He knows fear. Faintly remembers it from before, knows it all to well from Wanda’s hands. He can barely stand it, but he knows that he’s can’t keep running from it. If he wants to build any sort of life here he has to face it.

The echo of Bucky’s words join Natasha’s: _You are not a coward!_ _I did not crash a plane in the arctic to live up to this!_

Steve sighs, tips his head back and blinks at the darkness around him.

Maybe...well, maybe Bucky has a point. 

 

* * *

The psychiatrist sits in the chair for his whole hour, dutifully discussing things Steve doesn't give a fuck about, trying to get Steve to talk. He waits until he hears the file being closed, the pen being capped and slipped into the inside pocket of a jacket. 

“I need something.”

The psychiatrist stills. “Yes?”

Steve blinks, his mouth twisting. “Tell Captain Barnes to pull his head out of his ass and come back.”

The psychiatrist goes still, and then attempts to regroup. “Why Captain Barnes, Steve?”

Steve sighs and shuts his eyes. The psychiatrist is well-used to showing himself out. 

* * *

 

 

Bucky and Steve stand a foot apart, either side of the glass. Bucky’s jaw is squared, Steve's arms are folded across his chest. The security cameras are trained on them, and Steve is willing to bet that there is a SHIELD agent with their finger hovering over the switch to turn the floor back on.

“You’re a fuckin’ asshole,” Bucky finally says.

“I know,” Steve replies, ducking his head, because even though he’s both bigger and stronger, Bucky’s reprimands still hurt. He pushes the shame away and steels himself, knowing that if he says the next words, there's no going back. “I need your help.”

“Whatcha think I’ve been doing this entire time?!” Bucky starts to rant, but stops as Steve reaches out and presses a palm to the glass.

“You were right.”

The words hang there between them. Bucky seems utterly taken aback, mouth hanging slightly open.

“Say what?”

“You’re right,” Steve says. He looks up, swallows hard. “I need to work out who I am today. And that means remembering who I was.”

Bucky’s mouth falls open even further, jaw slack with shock.

“I used to be a good man,” Steve says. “I’m not a perfect soldier, but I’m still a soldier - I’m never going to go back to being Cap. But I think - I need you to help me remember some of that.”

“Okay,” Bucky says weakly. “Alright, you got it.”

Steve nods. “Okay.”

His heart is beating too quickly inside his chest, and for a single moment he’s not the Winter Soldier, he’s not Captain America - he’s 90 pounds soaking wet and gasping to breathe, chasing Bucky along a narrow Brooklyn street, yelling after him.

He clenches his eyes shut, and pushes the memory away. Recovering one lost identity is enough for now. 

“So,” Bucky’s voice says, sounding braver than Steve feels. “Where do we start?”

Steve takes a deep breath and opens his eyes.

“We’re gonna need my file back.”

* * *

 

 

It doesn’t take long.

Only a few days after he meets with Bucky, and Steve is woken from his restless and restrained slumber by a commotion outside of his cell. It’s distant but angry, easily audible with his enhanced hearing. Nerves like live snakes twist into life under his sternum and he clenches his eyes shut, metal fingers flexing unconsciously.

The door hisses open.

Voices, footsteps. Loud and argumentative. Insistent and fraught, a conflict yet resolved. Steve hears Fury, hears Bucky telling someone to go and fuck themselves.  

The noise is hushed, slowly fades. Steve exhales slowly, and opens his eyes.

Bucky is right in front of him, pressed against the outer glass. Behind him stands a silent audience; Clint, Nick Fury, three SHIELD agents, four men and two women in business dress, a man in US army uniform littered with medals and acclaim, his psychiatrist and a SHIELD medic.

Bucky lifts an eyebrow. “Someone wants to ask you a question or two.”

Steve nods slowly, and Fury steps forwards, next to Bucky. Steve’s stomach twists even tighter; Fury looks deadly serious, and it doesn’t take a genius to work out what the question is going to be.

“Who are you?”

Steve looks away from Fury, down at his knees. Breathes in and out through his mouth and glances to Bucky. Bucky jerks his head in a nod, looking braver than Steve feels. He’s unwavering, a solid presence. He won‘t let this go wrong for Steve. He’s stuck by him so far. He won’t leave him now. 

“Steve Rogers,” Steve says slowly, and locks his eyes with Bucky’s. “Born July Fourth, nineteen eighteen. I was enlisted into the US army in forty-three, put through Project Rebirth the same year, and I used to be Captain America.”

Like a gust of wind through the edges of a window, there’s an immediate murmuring from the assembled crowd, skeptical noises and confused faces. 

“Bull,” the general with the medals says, looking annoyed. “Captain America is on _this_ side of the glass.”

“I told you, I’m the second one,” Bucky says, sounding very much like he wants to knock the general out. “You read Von Strucker’s file, didn't you? I mean, you can actually read, right?”

The General glares at Bucky like he’d happily return the favor. “Oh for - I told you, we are not accepting the written ramblings of a mad Hydra agent as proof that this man is Captain America!”

“That Hydra Agent was probably more fuckin’ coherent than you are, pal!”

“If I may,” Fury interjects smoothly before Bucky and the General can start swinging for each other. He pulls his hands out from behind his back to reveal a file, a beige SHIELD-stamped file that looks a lot like the one Steve liberated from Von Strucker, the one that Bucky handed over to SHIELD. He licks his thumb and idly flicks through it, pulling out a single page. 

“Now, because of the many reasons I have already shared with you, we have no official files pertaining to the original Project Rebirth. By that, I mean the one involving Steve Rogers, not the one we...well, the one we lied about. No offense, Captain Barnes.” he says, looking at the page.

Bucky shrugs. “Told you shitheads to not lie, but no-one listened to me.”

“That you did,” Fury says neutrally. “Anyway. When this situation came to light, a certain someone started digging. He found this particular information among his father’s remaining possessions; information which was  _ not _ handed over and destroyed. Feel free to take it and  verify its authenticity.”

He hands the page to the general, who scans it, eyes flicking rapidly from side to side.

“And you’ll find that a lot of this file corroborates the information found in the Von Strucker file,” Fury continues easily, and then turns his full attention to Steve. “Soldier, what happened on June twenty-fifth, nineteen forty three?” Fury asks.

“Project Rebirth,” Steve says immediately. 

Fury nods. “And when you went through rebirth...do you remember the first thing that anyone asked you?”

Steve pauses. “That was said to me, or that someone asked me?”

Fury looks pleased at that, if only just enough for Steve to notice. “Asked.”

“Agent Carter asked me how I felt.”

The general’s eyes get a fraction wider. Fury simply leans back a little and crosses his arms over his chest.

“What did you say to that?”

“I said I felt taller.”

There’s a deathly silence, and then the sound of a strangled laugh. Clint claps his palm over his mouth to stifle his sniggering. “Really?” he says to Steve. “ _ That _ was your big line?”

And with that, everyone starts talking at once. The general is ranting at Fury, the SHIELD agents are arguing amongst themselves, his psychiatrist is in the middle of a heated debate with his medic. The business types - lawyers and WSC delegates, he assumes - aren’t arguing but are looking like they’ve all suddenly developed migraines. 

In the midst the chaos, Bucky tugs the file out of Fury’s unresisting hand and slaps it against the glass, so Steve can read the name stamped on the corner. He smiles tiredly, resting his temple against the glass too.

“I’ll unlock the door when they’ve chilled the fuck out,” he says.

Steve nods mutely, eyes still fixed on the name on the file, neat typewritten letters that tell him so much more than just who is responsible for keeping information about the original Rebirth.

_ Howard A. W. Stark. _

 

* * *

__

“So. Where do you want to go?”

Bucky nudges him with an elbow as Steve stands still in the atrium of the SHIELD facility, staring out at the night beyond the glass doors. Clint is on his other side, arms folded across his chest and uncharacteristically quiet.

He’s free to go.

Hours of meetings and wrangling, and he’s finally free to go. He has an official apology from both SHIELD and the WSC tucked in his inside jacket pocket, alongside a schedule for the various hearings he has to attend, as well as a hefty number of ‘evaluation appointments’. Bucky’s eye had started twitching at that, but Steve had just agreed, as long as he got a new psychiatrist. His old psychiatrist didn’t seem that dismayed by the request, in all honesty. 

The Von Strucker incident has been swept under the rug, his act of violence reclassified under ‘reasonable force’ in light of what he went through at the hands of Hydra.  

He’s not sure how he feels about it.

He’s not sure how he feels about  _ anything. _

“Steve?” Bucky says his name again, quiet and soft. “Where are we going?”

He blinks, the lights reflecting on the river swimming in and out of focus. “I’m not sure,” he admits. “I feel like if I make a decision, it’s going to…”

He trails off. Bucky makes a sympathetic noise, and Clint nods slowly.

“Going to bite you in the ass,” he says knowingly, and glances at Steve. “Hey, you’re not the only post-brainwashing case around here,” he says with a shrug. “Ask Bucky what I did in New York.”

“Hey, you may have fucked up, but you never had to live up to being Captain America,” Bucky says. “Give him a break, Clint.”

“I’m being helpful,” Clint says. “Hey, can I be Captain America next? If it’s like, a hand-me down type thing, I wanna be next.”

“You can fucking have the shield,” Bucky grouches. “It’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Yeah,” Steve says absently, agreeing but already tuning out of the conversation. His mind is oddly quiet; the usual restless murmur and sharp edges have faded into something quieter. It makes him think that maybe the stillness and cold he wanted wasn’t somewhere he actually had to go to, but something more abstract. A metaphor; a story in his own mind that needed a conclusion. 

He’s scared. He can admit that much. Somewhere within the quiet is a fear that he’s still not going to be able to trust himself, that he’s still not going to be able to find the part of him that’s a good man. And he needs to find it; if he wants to stay with Bucky and the team he has to find it. He can’t be a liability any more.

And if he wants to be back at Tony’s side, he’s definitely going to have to find the even ground between who he was then and who he is now. 

He closes his eyes. Wills down the fear and the urge to turn around and walk back into his cell. Decides to trust in Bucky’s faith and Clint’s friendship and Natasha’s words and Tony’s love.

“ Poshli domoy,” he finally says.

Bucky’s smile is wide and uncomplicated. “Yeah,” he says, easy and free like it’s nineteen forty two and nothing bad ever happened. “Let’s go home.”

 

* * *

He sits at the bottom of the stairs a few feet away from the heavy glass doors, elbows on his knees and chin cupped in his metal hand. He’s been watching the figure on the other side of the glass for over an hour, but doesn’t want to move.

Well, it’s not strictly true; a lie of omission in his own mind. He does want to move, but he’s not entirely sure what will happen when he does.

Tony is beautiful, lost in world of blue screens and holographs. The light is the same blue as the arc reactor, and it makes Steve feel safe, like he’s in the right place. 

His chest aches. Tony has had his back to him the entire time, and he’s limited to watching the play of muscle across his shoulders, slight glances of his profile as he turns. He’s building something; Steve has no idea what, but he can see the painstaking effort Tony is putting into his creation. He drums the fingers of his metal hand against his chin, feeling yet more evidence of Tony’s craftsmanship and work against his skin. 

A month ago and he wouldn’t even be sitting here like this. He’d have stalked away, gone to sit on the roof in the cold, refused to acknowledge what any of this means.

He slowly gets to his feet and steps forwards, softly knocking metal knuckles against the glass.

Tony whips around instantly, and his face goes rigid with shock. He climbs up off his stool, his eyes never once leaving Steve’s face as he walks forwards, stopping inches away from the glass. Wordless, Steve presses his palm against the glass, hoping Tony understands.

“Please tell me you’re here legally,” Tony finally says, and Steve nods. Tony exhales, seeming momentarily appeased, but he’s still tense. “A call would have been nice,” he says, eyes turning down. He shoves his hands into his pockets, rocks back on his heels. “You know. Honey, I’m out of supervillain supermax and I’m home.”

“Had some thinking to do,” Steve says. “I didn’t want to come here and fuck it up.”

“Well, you knocked instead of smashing the door down,” Tony says. “That’s a vast improvement on your usual ‘do what the fuck I want’ style.”

Steve flinches, but he doesn’t take his hand down away from the window. “I may have...fucked it up.”

Tony huffs. “Okay, I have to take you back off of Capslock for a while, there is no need to say fuck that many times in thirty seconds.”

“One of those was you.”

Tony rears back. “You wanna be on this side of the glass or do you wanna stay there?”

“ Ya lyublyu tebya,” Steve says, wanting very much to be on the right side of the glass. Fuck, it's like handling eggshells. He's not good at this. “I love you. And I’m sorry I made such a mess of things.”

Tony looks up. The affront is gone from his eyes, replaced by something much softer and achingly familiar. “You know I love you,” he replies. “But it still stands. I’m not doing this if you love me as your handler.”

Steve nods. “I know. I’ve...I’ve asked Bucky. If just for a while. He’ll...he’ll take over for a while. He’s - he’s going to be…”

“Your handler?” Tony says, incredulity lacing the words. “After spending the last six months blatantly ignoring him? You’re meant to be getting past all this-”

“I am,” Steve cuts across him before Tony can really get going, his words choppy and uneven. “But I can’t - everyone knows who I was, and I’m trying to learn who I was - I’m learning to trust myself, but I can’t do this all in one go.”

“Okay, okay,” Tony says quickly, soothing and apologetic. “I’m sorry, okay. I get it. Step at a time.”

Steve nods mutely. He feels vaguely panicky again, out of sorts and not in control. He aches for Tony to tell him what to do, to set it right, but he doesn't know if he can ask for that anymore.

There’s a soft hum of sound and the doors slowly part. He leans back, taking his hand from the glass and looking helplessly at Tony. Tony’s eyes are too bright, but his mouth hitches in a wavering smile as he holds out a hand.

“Still gonna look after you, Soldier Boy.”

Steve takes the offered hand and pulls Tony in. Tony comes willingly, tripping into Steve, a hand coming up to rest on the side of his neck as Steve leans in and kisses him. He’s shaking head to toe and he never wants to let go; he slides an arm around Tony’s waist and pulls him flush against him, breathing heavily as Tony kisses him again and again, coaxing Steve’s mouth open to taste him. 

He pulls away, chest heaving and heart beating a mad tattoo inside his ribcage. He can barely think, doesn’t know if he’s doing the right thing or not-

“Shhh,” Tony says, pressing his forehead to Steve’s. “I got you. We’ll work this out.”

Steve nods jerkily. “You helped,” he says. “That file. You father’s file.”

Tony shrugs. “You had all the information you needed in that file you took from Von Strucker.”

Shaking his head, Steve runs his hand up Tony’s back and over the muscle of his shoulders. “The WSC would never have accepted it without a second source to corroborate.”

“Well, they probably would have been able-”

“Stop,” Steve says fiercely, cutting Tony off before he can hand-wave any more. “Stop selling yourself short.”

Tony opens his mouth again, looking slightly defiant, so Steve decides to stop him talking in the easiest way he knows; he dips his head to kiss Tony again, hot and hungry. Tony makes a startled noise but goes with it.

“You miss me or something?” he says, words panted into the space between their mouths as Steve slides large palms onto the back of his thighs and lifts him onto the workbench, pressing forwards between his legs. Bumped across the bench, the thing Tony was building teeters dangerously close to the edge, and Steve grabs it with his metal hand, shoving into onto a shelf out of their way without pulling his mouth away from Tony’s. Tony laughs breathlessly, the sound both muffled by the kiss and ragged around the edges in a way that’s very telling.

Seized by impulse, Steve presses one last lingering kiss to Tony’s mouth and then pulls back, ignoring Tony’s annoyed noise and instead taking his head in his hands. He waits patiently for kiss-drunk eyes to flutter open.

“I got you too,” he says quietly. “I’m going to look after you for a while.”

Tony’s mouth flickers. “You gonna make me your mission?”

“No,” Steve says, and he’s pretty sure that’s not a lie. He can't be a hundred percent sure yet though. “Not a mission to be with you.”

Tony’s smile gets stronger, braver. “Ti amo, Soldato.”

Steve kisses the edge of the smile. “Ti amo, Meccanico.”

 

 

* * *

 

The jet streaks across the sky, heading non-stop towards Albania and the latest genetically modified threat that is causing carnage on the outskirts of a city. Recent reports say that several people have been killed and several scientists have been taken hostage, along with several hundred students from the local university.

On board, it is chaos. Bucky is yelling at Clint who is yelling at Pietro who is rolling his eyes. Wanda is deep in discussion with Sam, both of them talking tactics at an increasingly loud volume as to be heard over the rest of the ruckus. Natasha is pulling out weapons from the locker and keeping a narrowed eye on Bucky. Tony and Bruce are arguing emphatically about the tech that has been used as part of the genetic modification, and the comm unit in the cockpit keeps beeping as SHIELD try and contact the team.

“ U nas yest' desyat' minut,” Steve calls out, to no discernible result. The arguments continue; he knows enough Sokovian to catch the tail end of Clint’s threat to make Pietro sleep on the couch, and Pietro’s less than pleasant retort.

Part of Steve’s brain still has trouble working out how Clint can stand to sleep next to Pietro after Pietro almost killed him, but then he remembers that Tony still welcomes Steve into his bed despite everything that’s happened. Swings and roundabouts, really.

The comm starts up beeping again; irritated, Steve gets up and stalks over to the pilot's seat, jabbing the button to activate the link.

“Da.”

“Rogers?” It’s Fury himself, sounding pissed. Steve doesn’t care; from his experience Fury always sounds like that. “Tell Captain Barnes to pick up his damn comm.”

“He threw his SHIELD comm out of the back of the jet.”

Fury sighs. “I long for the days where you were the biggest pain in my ass. Keep me posted.”

“Da,” Steve snorts, and cuts the link.

“You handling interdepartmental relations now?” An amused voice asks, and Tony slides down into the co-pilots seat.

“Two years since I officially joined the team, about damn time I got a promotion,” Steve says and Tony laughs, carefree and easy. Steve almost-smiles back, reading up to press his thumb against the soft creases at the corner of Tony’s eye. Tony’s smile deepens, warm and fond. 

“Did Bucky tell you-”

“For zero bloodshed because of the kids of the ground, yes,” Steve says, nodding. “It’s like you don’t trust me.”

Tony looks at him flatly. “You are not funny.”

“I am hilarious,” Steve says. “Go and put your suit on.”

Tony pulls a face. “Sir, yes, sir,” he says and pushes himself up. He pauses and leans in to steal a kiss before heading to suit up, shouting across at Sam who looks affronted and yells back. Steve twitches at the rise in volume, but thankfully Bucky has clearly had enough too and bellows across the rest of the voices.

“Pietro, cut the crap before I make you stay on the jet; Barton, get your damn bow; Tony, stop trying to be smart and Steve come and look at what the fuck I need you to do!”

Steve obediently gets up and joins the others around the holoscreens at the back of the jet. He tucks himself just behind Bucky, already drinking in and memorizing the information displayed in front of him.

“So. Here’s the plan,” Bucky says, standing up straight and going into business mode. “Hawkeye, you go with Little Witch and do what you got to do to keep those kids safe. Widow, you’re on your own, you know your mission. Bruce, tell Jolly Green that he’s staying on call. Iron Man, you’re on civilian evac with Roadrunner, and me and Captain Overkill are going to punch some genetically modified nazis in the face.” 

“Wow,” Natasha says, with a shake of her head. “Your eloquence astounds me.”

“It's what I do,” Bucky says distractedly, checking his watch. “On my mark. Get ready for a speedy dismount.”

Everyone moves away, and Steve waits to check in with Bucky.

“Code?” Bucky asks him in an undertone. He doesn’t look concerned, just patient, and Steve knows he’ll do this every day, every mission until the end of time if Steve needs it. Maybe one day he won’t, but for now he’s content. Safe. Still learning.

“Same,” Steve says. “ _ Brooklyn _ if I need to stop. Code?”

“ _ Cyclone _ if I need you to stop,” Bucky rattles off, and then grins. “Hey, we’re back to punching nazis. Just like old times, right?”

Steve smiles back. Looks around at the rest of the team, laughs as Tony smirks and  blows him a kiss from by the door before slamming down the faceplate, locked safely into his armor. Steve feels a tension ease from his shoulders, an immediate response to Tony being fully protected.

“Not exactly like old times,” he says to Bucky. “But not exactly new, either.”

Bucky huffs out a laugh. “Amen to that,” he says, and picks up the shield from its place by his feet, nudging Steve with the edge of it. “Ready?”

Steve nods, lifts his domino mask up over his eyes, rubs unconsciously at the dark red star on his chest. “Da.”


End file.
